


The Personal Touch

by Luthien



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Massage, Mutual Pining, Professional Ethics, unwise kisses, wanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:48:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 64,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22494070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: Physiotherapist Brienne Tarth makes her very first home visit to a rather difficult patient.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 744
Kudos: 954





	1. Brienne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Intoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intoni/gifts).



> Thanks to Firesign, Samirant, Nire and Slipsthrufingers for reading through and general cheer leading. 
> 
> Intoni gave me "a massage" from the romance prompt meme on tumblr, and this is the result.
> 
> Please note: this is just a bit of pure indulgence. Brienne is a trained professional at this sort of thing but I'm definitely not.

Brienne hesitated before pressing the intercom button. The name beside it said 'King', but she was here to see a Mr Lannister. She pulled out her tablet and checked the patient details. Yes, she definitely had the right address for Jaime Lannister, and 67 was the correct apartment number. 

She reached out, pushed the button, and waited. 

_"What do you want?"_ a male voice barked through the crackle of static a few moments later.

"I have an appointment at ten with Mr Lannister," Brienne replied, using her best 'calm but firm health professional' voice. "I'm the physiotherapist."

 _"You're not Catelyn Stark. I know what she looks like."_ The man—presumably Jaime Lannister—made it sound like an accusation.

"No, I'm Brienne Tarth." There must be a video camera concealed somewhere nearby. It was a shame the vision didn't go both ways so that Brienne could get some idea of who she was talking to. "Ms Stark assigned your case to me. You should have received a text notification yesterd-"

 _"I've had my phone turned off,"_ the man admitted, though he sounded grudging about it.

"I am who I say I am, Mr Lannister. I'm happy to wait while you turn on your phone and check. Or please feel free to call the Winterfell Clinic if you'd like to conf-"

The glass doors buzzed, and slid open. Brienne picked up her portable treatment table and wasted no time in going through the doorway, in case her obstreperous patient decided to change his mind. She didn't want to have to go back to Catelyn and tell her she'd failed to even see the patient on her very first home visit.

A short time later, the lift deposited her on a floor near the top of the apartment building. Number 67 was just opposite the lift so, taking a deep breath, Brienne rapped on the door and waited.

And waited.

She waited nearly two minutes—she checked the time on her fitness tracker—as she held her hands clasped in front of her to stop herself from knocking again. Jaime Lannister knew she was coming up. He knew that she would be at his door at any moment, and he must have heard her knocking. So that meant that he was purposely making her wait. She wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of sitting back—right on the other side of the bloody door, most likely—and listening to her knock again. Brienne stood there and waited, resolute.

Still, she couldn't help but feel at least a little relieved when the door finally opened. A man stood there. He was young—or at least young-ish—and wearing a pair of ratty old jeans, fingers thrust into the pockets, and a plain bottle green t-shirt that hung on his broad-shouldered frame far too loosely. He'd lost weight, she thought, and probably in quite a short space of time. 

That would be since the accident, then.

He was nearly as tall as she was herself, with dirty blond hair that didn't look as if it had been washed or combed—let alone cut—recently, and the beginnings of a rather unkempt beard. He would have looked handsome—and more than handsome, maybe even model-pretty—if not for the hollowness around his green eyes and the pinched corners of his mouth that told Brienne without a doubt that this was someone suffering strong and probably unrelenting pain.

"Mr Lannister? I'm Brienne Tarth." She held out her hand, and then silently cursed herself. Of course he wasn't in a position to be shaking hands. That was why she was here.

But Jaime Lannister—assuming that's who he was—didn't seem to have noticed her proffered hand, or that it had dropped back to her side. He stared at her from beneath a furrowed brow. "Are you a woman?" he asked, not trying to hide his surprise.

Brienne bristled. She couldn't help it. A calm, professional demeanour was all very well, but this… this… _man_ had only just met her and his immediate reaction was to make fun of her. It was as if she was her horribly self-conscious fifteen-year-old self again, and not the self-assured twenty-five-year-old physiotherapist she'd been until approximately three seconds ago. "I told you my name, when I called from downstairs," she said tightly.

The man's frown intensified. "I thought you said your name was Bryn?"

"I said that my name was—is—Brienne Tarth. _Brienne_ , not Bryn."

The man shrugged. "Easy mistake to make. They still haven't fixed the damned intercom. It's hard to make out half of what anybody says when they call up, and the video's so fuzzy that it's not much use at all." 

Some of Brienne's outrage diminished at that. He hadn't been intending to insult her. Not about the usual things that people found wanting in her, anyway. She nodded, acknowledging what he'd said. He was still frowning, but the frown had lessened somewhat now, and the puzzlement that had accompanied it was gone from his eyes. It didn't seem to be directed at her for any specific reason. Did he frown all the time? That would be the pain at work, again, she realised. 

"And anyway, you're as tall as a man," he added, and Brienne immediately regretted forgiving him for his earlier comment. He didn't say that she was also built like a man, but then he didn't have to. The way he looked her up and down, at once assessing and dismissing her according to some rating scale known only to himself, said it all. "I suppose you'd better come in, since you're here," he continued, not very graciously, but he stepped back out of the way to let her enter. "I'm Jaime Lannister, by the way."

"I guessed," Brienne said, before she could stop herself.

He raised his eyebrows at that, and there was a flash of something in his eyes that might have been interest, or at least curiosity, before it was gone again. He led the way through the frankly enormous apartment—with the requisite breathtaking views of Blackwater Bay to the north and east—to the kitchen and pointed her to a bar stool.

Brienne set down her bag, propped her treatment table carefully against one wall, and took the seat Jaime Lannister had indicated. She waited for him to sit down as well, but he remained standing, hands still in pockets, and seemingly not inclined to say anything else.

She cleared her throat and said, "Well, first things first. Have you been continuing with the exercises that the surgeon recommended for you, Mr Lannister?"

That got a reaction. He scowled. "No, I haven't," he bit out.

Brienne didn't rise to the bait. She was on firmer ground now that they were at last talking about her area of professional expertise. There would be time to circle back round to the question of the exercises later. "I'd like to start with a general examination," she said instead. She bent to retrieve a small towel from her bag and spread it out on the countertop. "Could you lay your right arm on the towel with your hand palm up, please?"

If he was going to let her examine his hand, he really had no choice but to take the stool beside her. Brienne wondered if he'd actually do it, or simply order her out of the apartment. Somewhat to her surprise, he complied, though the scowl marring his classically handsome features turned into a glower—and one directed right at her.

Brienne dealt with that by the simple expedient of turning her attention to his hand. It was a sad and sorry sight. There were still visible marks from the pins had been recently removed from the thumb and two remaining fingers—following surgery after injuries sustained in a mugging on the street, Brienne knew from the notes on the patient file. The fingers themselves were curled inward over the palm—to a much greater degree than Brienne preferred to see—and the rest of the hand was criss-crossed with angry, half-healed scars.

"Pretty enough for you?" His voice was mocking—or maybe just self-mocking—and when Brienne looked up from her perusal of his hand, she found his eyes were agate-hard as they followed her every move.

"I'm here to help you, Mr Lannister. Beauty contests don't come into it for either of us."

"You really think that you can help me?" He sounded doubtful. "I was only persuaded into this because I was assured—and the internet confirmed—that Catelyn Stark is the very best at what she does. So, I engaged her, but instead I got… you."

"I'm good at what I do. Very good, or else Ms Stark would never have employed me in the first place. I can help you, Mr Lannister, if you let me. If you're willing to do your part," Brienne said. Her voice was calm and assured, and it wasn't an act. When it came to her work, Brienne had every confidence in herself. There was no way to fake that, or at least no way that she could fake that, and she'd found that her manner tended to reassure her patients that they were safe in her hands.

Mostly.

Her current patient continued to eye her suspiciously. He still hadn't thrown her out, though. Brienne chose to take that as a positive sign.

"Could you raise your hand, please? I'm going to have to touch it in order to check it out properly, but I'll be as gentle as possible."

His eyes still on her face, Jaime Lannister lifted his hand.

"Yes, that's right. Keep your elbow on the towel like that, while I… Yes, good." 

The back of his hand looked even worse than the other side, though the scars here were mostly straighter and more even—the results of surgery rather than injuries from the accident. Jaime Lannister remained silent as Brienne took his hand in hers and pressed gently against his palm with her thumb. Immediately, he let out a sharp hiss. Brienne couldn't blame him. In his place, she'd probably be doing more than breathing hard. There was quite a bit of tension there, but considering all the recent trauma the hand had suffered, it wasn't really surprising. She moved on to the fingers. All three digits were swollen, and curled over in a way that suggested even more tension than in the rest of the hand.

"I'm just going to put a small amount of pressure on your middle finger-"

"My _right_ finger, you mean," he said, with a bitter little twist of the lips.

"Your _longest_ finger," Brienne amended. "Just to get an idea of the range of motion it has at the moment." She put her words into action, exerting minimal pressure on the knuckle. The hand jerked in response, and a second later Jaime Lannister pulled it away.

"Sorry," Brienne said. "I can see that it's very sensitive, but I had to check. And your response answers my question about the level of mobility in your fingers."

"I bow to your brilliant insight," he said, and this time his tone was not _self-_ mocking.

"I'm going to lead you through some basic finger exercises. The first one will help with the range of-"

"I've already _tried_ exercises!" Jaime Lannister jumped to his feet and paced several steps before whirling around to face her. " _This_ is the best you can offer?"

"Yes, it _is_ the best thing, now that your hand has had a chance to recover from the surgery," Brienne replied as calmly as she could. "And yes, before you ask, these exercises are exactly what Catelyn Stark would recommend if she were here right now."

He glared at her. Brienne got to her feet to face him, not glaring in return but also not breaking eye contact. 

"Mr Lannister, you can tell me to leave if you wish. That is your right. But if you want me to help you, then these exercises are essential. Perhaps if I demonstrate with my own fingers first, and then you can tell me if the exercises I recommend are the same or similar to the ones you've already tried?"

He continued to look at her for a long moment, his glare slowly subsiding into a slightly puzzled frown. Brienne got the distinct impression that she wasn't reacting the way she was supposed to. She was slightly taller than he was, but not really enough that it made much difference. He'd probably never had a woman look him straight in the eyes like this, though, and unflinchingly to boot. She wondered how he would react if she were actually staring down at him, as she would be if she were wearing her favourite heels instead of the trainers that she always wore to work. 

After another moment, he shrugged, and with a muttered, "Why the hell not?" he returned to the stool beside her as Brienne resumed her own seat.

"The range of motion exercise works like this," she began, laying her right hand on the towel and using her left hand to guide her middle finger back and forth very slowly.

Jaime Lannister watched as she repeated the exercise several times, and then did it over again using her index finger. 

"That's not… The exercises that Dr Qyburn… _carried out_ on me were… They weren't like that." He bit his lower lip, as if to prevent himself from saying anything more.

Brienne nodded. "So, will you allow me to manipulate your fingers a few times, and then you can try it for yourself?"

He looked at her, that green gaze of his intense and assessing. He must have found what he was looking for in her face, because after a moment he muttered, "All right," and held out his hand, in much the same way as he might if he were forcing himself to reach into a blazing fire.

"Just lay it down on the towel," Brienne said. "That's right…" She kept her focus on his hand as she moved first one finger and then the other, pretending not to notice the tremors that shook his entire arm, or to hear the occasional laboured huff of breath from above. "All right, your turn," she said, only then looking at him again.

Most of the colour had left Jaime Lannister's face, and now the rest of his skin matched the pale circles under his eyes that Brienne had noticed when she'd first seen him. He didn't say anything, but simply nodded and bent his head as he tried the exercise for himself.

"Just five at a time to begin with," Brienne told him.

He nodded again, and kept at it. Once he'd moved the two fingers five times each, and the thumb as well for good measure, he turned to look at her. His jaw was tense, a muscle jumping there erratically. He screwed his eyes shut for a second, leaned against the counter, and sighed.

Brienne half-expected him to remain there like that, silent, so she was surprised when instead he began to speak, though he didn't turn to look at her or even open his eyes. 

"What that doctor did to my hand…It _hurt_. The exercises, I mean, not the surgery—though that certainly wasn't painless." He laughed. It wasn't a happy sound. "It hurt so much that I wanted to… Well, I could have gritted my teeth and got through it, I could have borne it, except that the exercises didn't seem to do any good." He sighed again, and sat up, and at last opened his eyes. "They left me in so much pain that I couldn't move my hand in any way at all without experiencing… Well, the term 'screaming agony' springs to mind," he said, with a humourless smile. "If the exercises were going to cause so much pain that they left me incapacitated, what was the point of putting myself through them at all?"

Brienne nodded, feeling her calm, professional mask slipping into place, while beneath it she was quietly appalled. What sort of doctor persisted with a treatment when it was so clearly of no benefit to the patient? 'First, do no harm': it appeared that this Dr Qyburn had forgotten that.

"The exercises that I'm recommending for you _will_ be painful, as you already know," she said carefully. "There's no getting around that, given the injuries you've sustained. However, they won't be incapacitating—just the opposite, once the initial pain from forcing your fingers out of their comfort zone has subsided. And at the end of our session, I can help you minimise the extra pain."

He frowned at her—he hadn't really stopped since he'd first opened the door—but it was more of a question than anything else this time. "What do you mean?"

"Simple," she said with a small, reassuring smile. "Once you're done, I'll give you a hand massage. That should help relax the muscles and get rid of some of the tension you've probably been carrying since the surgery. And I'd suggest trying some analgesic gel as well, if you haven't done so already."

Jaime Lannister's eyebrows rose. "A massage on my hand?" he said, as if it was a concept whose existence had never previously crossed his mind.

"Have you never been treated by a physiotherapist before?" Brienne asked. A hand massage was a pretty basic treatment, not something utterly outlandish.

"Is it that obvious?" he asked, and this time there was a touch of self-directed humour in his gaze, the corners of his eyes crinkling in an attractive sort of way that, in any other circumstances...

"Only to a trained physiotherapist," Brienne assured him with a completely straight face, and was rewarded with the first hint of a proper smile that she'd had from him. Doing her very best to radiate calm while the window of opportunity presented itself, she continued, "There are two other exercises that I think would be beneficial for you to try, one for extending your finger to help it straighten out, and the other a simple squeezing exercise to help strengthen your grip." She lifted her hand. "The finger extension exercise works like this…"

He watched without comment as she demonstrated first one exercise and then the other, and then tried them himself—this time with no hesitation. The tension was back in his jaw by the time he was done, though.

"That's good," Brienne said. 

"So now I get the hand massage?" he asked, for all the world like a child reminding someone of a promised treat. He'd probably been a lethally cute little boy.

"Now I massage your hand." Brienne got up. "I'll just set up my table over here, if that's okay?"

"I need to lie down for this?" he asked, getting to his feet as well. "Yeah, over there is fine," he added, nodding at the treatment table.

"I find the massage tends to be more effective if the entire body is as relaxed as possible."

Jaime Lannister nodded. "I'll help-" he began as she took hold of her treatment table, and then cut off so abruptly that Brienne turned to look at him. There was a hard, unhappy look on his face, his brows lowered in a ferocious scowl.

She didn't need assistance, but of course that wasn't the point. He _couldn't_ help. Not in the way he'd always done in the past without stopping to think about it, back when he had two fully functioning hands.

Brienne finished setting up her table without comment. "Please lie down on your back," she said as she fetched a chair from the nearby dining table.

He hoisted himself up onto the table without difficulty, thanks to long legs and probably an active lifestyle—or, at least, active until recently—and lay back.

Brienne sat down and retrieved a bottle of lotion from her bag. She applied it to one hand and then rubbed it slowly between her palms to warm it. "Hold your arm up and let your elbow take the weight the way you did before. Yes, just like that." And then she began.

She started by running her hands lightly along the length of his forearm, alternating between one hand and then the other. She wasn't exerting any real pressure but just letting him get used to the rhythmic touch as she made sure that the lotion covered his arm. It was a strong-looking arm, still well-muscled even though it couldn't have had much in the way of exercise for weeks.

"Let your arm go loose, so that I can rotate… Yes, that's right." She guided his arm in a few circular movements before moving on to the hand. As soon as she touched his wrist, his fingers closed into an awkward fist, and she felt his muscles tense beneath her fingers. She was about to ask him to try to unclench his fist when he let out a long breath and his fingers moved. She could almost feel the effort, and the accompanying pain, as his fingers slowly uncurled, as much as they were currently able. Only once he was done did she run her fingers over his hand, making sure it was covered in lotion as well. Then she took his hand in both of hers, palm down. Usually, the easiest way to do this was to take a loose hold of thumb and little finger, but of course in this case that wasn't possible, so Brienne tried a slightly different approach. She supported the hand underneath with her fingertips, while stroking gently along the top in an outward motion with her thumbs.

Jaime Lannister sighed again, and she could hear not tension and pain but relief in it this time. She glanced over to find him watching the steady movement of her hands. "Let me know if it hurts too much, or if you need me to stop," she said.

"Keep going." There was an expression in his eyes that she couldn't decipher. It wasn't hostile, or bitter, but whatever else it might have been… Well, Brienne had no idea, so she kept going.

She turned over his hand, and felt him tense again. He was self-conscious about the look of it, particularly the underside. He'd been broadcasting that loud and clear since he stuck his hands in his pockets the moment after he opened the door to her. 

"Close your eyes if you want," Brienne suggested, but she wasn't really surprised when she glanced at his face again and found that he was still watching her. 

She started on his palm using a similar motion to the one she'd applied on the top of the hand, gently sweeping up from heel to fingers, establishing the rhythm. His chest rose and then fell in a slow, deep breath.

Brienne tilted his hand on a slight angle, still holding it in both of hers, and turned her attention to his thumb. It was curled in towards the centre of his palm, but not to such an extreme as the other two fingers, though it was still far from straight. She rubbed her thumb in a light, circular motion at the base of his before continuing the movement up the length of the thumb and circling the tip before giving it a small squeeze.

The breath huffed out of her patient's lungs so suddenly that it sounded almost like a snort. Or a groan.

"Sorry," she said. "I'll come back to your thumb after I've done the other fingers, and try using a little less pressure."

"No, it's all right." He sounded a trifle breathless. "Just continue as you normally would."

Brienne nodded, and circled the tip of his thumb a few more times, but she could feel the tension in it, the way it had gone rigid beneath her touch, so she moved on to his index finger. This seemed a little less sensitive than his thumb had been, but there was still more tension remaining than she liked once she'd finished rubbing and gently squeezing both fingers. She moved on to the palm itself.

Starting with both thumbs in the centre of Jaime Lannister's hand, she moved them outward in the same gentle strokes she'd used on the back of his hand. She paused to feel for his pulse, intending to time her strokes with the beating of his heart, but that was faster than would have been ideal. He wasn't as relaxed as he was pretending to be—or maybe simply _trying_ to be—but after everything his body had been through in recent weeks that was really only to be expected.

"I'm going to take your hand in mine now, like a very loose handshake," she told him. She'd normally have just moved on to that part of the routine without comment, but this time a warning seemed advisable. 

"All right," he said, voice low.

Brienne took his hand in her right, fingers curling in around his, as she ran her left hand up and down his forearm a few times. She felt the muscles tense and bunch in response to her touch, but she could feel the difference compared to the state the arm had been in when she started. She gave his hand one last, gentle squeeze, and let it go.

"All done," she said, and reached into her bag for the packet of wipes that she always carried with her. She offered them to him as he sat up, and then took one for herself.

Once they'd wiped their hands—and his arm—free of lotion, he took the used wipes to the bin while Brienne set about folding up her table. 

"Your credit card is on file with the clinic, so the standard initial consultation fee will be deducted automatically today. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us."

"Don't worry about that." Jaime Lannister waved away the mention of her fee—with his right hand, she was pleased to note—as if it meant nothing. If you could afford to live somewhere like this, though, then you probably didn't have to bother yourself with the sordid details of monetary transactions.

"Fine," Brienne said. "Continue to do the exercises, five at a time, every day, and I'll be back next week to see how you-"

"Oh, no, you won't." His voice was almost a growl.

It was Brienne's turn to frown. She'd really thought that the session had gone fairly well in the end, once it had got going properly. "May I ask why not?" she enquired.

"Because you'll be back here tomorrow. And every day after that."

"I really don't-" Brienne began.

"If I have to do those exercises every day, then you can come here and give me a massage every day."

"You can't just-"

"It's the only thing I've tried that's actually helped with the pain!"

It was the faint hint of desperation in his eyes that stopped her from yelling back at him. He wasn't being an entitled, spoilt rich person—well, he _was_ , but not just that. "I wish I could," she said, voice as gentle as she could make it. "But I don't make those sorts of decisions. My schedule is fully booked for the rest of the week, in any case."

"I'll call Catelyn Stark. I'm sure we can work something out. How does three times the going rate sound?"

"I really-"

" _Five_ times whatever you usually charge. It really doesn't make any difference to me, so long as you're here, every day, after I do those bloody exercises."

"I'll talk to Ms Stark. Maybe we can-"

" _I'll_ talk to her."

"Do you mind not interrupting me and letting me finish a sentence?!" Brienne snapped, her professional mask slipping at last. It was her turn to glare at him. "I expect common courtesy from _all_ of my patients, and that includes you, Mr Lannister." 

She half-expected him to rip up at her. It was probably rare for anyone to talk back to him like that. But he didn't shout. He didn't even talk over her this time. Instead, his lips curved into an odd little smile. "Jaime," he said. "My name's Jaime."

"All right, _Jaime_ ," she said. "If Ms Stark agrees to reschedule some of my other appointments I'll come back tomorrow, at least—though I can't promise any more than that for now. In return, I expect basic civility. Do we have a deal?"

His eyes were very green, she thought irrelevantly, as he considered her for a second. Brienne couldn't help wondering what he saw when he looked at her, or what he thought he saw. She got the unnerving feeling that whatever that sight might be, it wasn't a freakishly tall, allegedly female—as one of her classmates had once charmingly described her—physiotherapist with short straw blonde hair. Or not just that.

"We do," he said, and held out his hand—his _right_ hand—for her to shake. His palm was warm against hers, his touch light and careful. He would have had a firm handshake before, she was certain. She'd known him for somewhat less than half an hour, but she already felt sure about the sort of person that he was, or had been—at least when it came to some things.

"Until next time, then, Jaime," she said with a polite, professional smile, after he led her to the door and opened it for her.

"Until tomorrow, Brienne," he replied, with a smile that was neither professional nor exactly polite.

She kept thinking about that smile as she waited for the lift, and as she travelled down to the ground floor. She was still thinking about it when she got back to the parking space where she'd left her car, and stowed her treatment table in the boot.

She thought about it on and off all through the rest of the working day, and on the way home when she was stuck in rush hour traffic.

It was only when at last she'd made it home and shut the front door behind her that she allowed herself to think of green, green eyes that crinkled slightly at the edges in amusement, looking out from a ridiculously handsome face almost level with her own. And then there were those shoulders, as broad as hers, and a nicely muscled arm. And all of it belonged to a man with the right sort of handshake.

She sighed. 'Look, don't touch'. That had been her mantra for years, ever since Renly. Except she had to touch Jaime, didn't she? That was the whole reason for their—professional—relationship. It was the only reason she'd met him at all.

Brienne had never had any trouble maintaining an appropriate professional distance from her patients. Well, she wasn't about to start changing that now. She would do everything in her power to help this particular patient recover from his injuries and then, when he was no longer in need of her services, she would say goodbye and not look back.

She ignored the heavy, sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she dumped her work bag on the bed, and then went through to the kitchen, where she poured herself a very large glass of wine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The rating is reeeeally pretty likely to increase before this thing is done.


	2. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime doesn't think about Brienne. He doesn't think about her _a lot_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that this chapter has taken longer than anticipated. I've been flattened by life the past couple of weeks.
> 
> Thanks to Samirant and Firesign for looking this chapter over for me.
> 
> And yeah, the rating went up. ;)

Jaime was on the phone to Catelyn Stark almost as soon as the door had closed behind Brienne. It took longer than he expected to get what he wanted. Catelyn drove a hard bargain, once he got her to even agree to send Brienne to him every day for the next week. Of course, she didn't have reason to love any Lannister, most particularly him, but she needed the cash, since the passing of her teeth-grindingly righteous husband, the sainted Ned, had left her in fairly dire financial straits. It was probably the only reason she'd agreed to take Jaime on as a patient at all.

He would have paid almost anything to feel the touch of Brienne's soothing hands every day, but there was no reason at all that Catelyn Stark needed to know that. By the time he ended the call, Jaime had secured Brienne's professional services every day for the rest of the week, at four times the usual rate, plus the following Monday, when the situation would be reviewed.

He went through to his office, fumbling with his left hand on the mouse while he logged in remotely to the Lanniscorp system, and tried to concentrate on the latest developments in the company's takeover bid for ReachTyrell.

Jaime didn't think about Brienne Tarth and her steady blue gaze refusing to let him look away. He didn't think about her low, calm voice, telling him what to do and how to do it. And he most particularly didn't think about the feel of her hands on him, touching with care, touching with _intent_.

He didn't think and didn't think and _didn't think_ all through the rest of the day, until he couldn't stand his own company any more and ordered takeaway just so that he could talk to another human being.

"Here's your order," said the delivery guy, handing it over.

"Thanks," Jaime said, but the guy was already turning away towards the lift, and that was that.

Food didn't help much. Or at all. He'd decided to try ordering from King's Landing's only Lorathi restaurant, just for a change, and he soon discovered just why it was the only one. Jaime supposed the food was all right, so long as you liked cod and a side of seaweed, with little in the way of seasoning apart from an excessive amount of salt. He ended up throwing most of it in the bin, and, resolving to go back to ordering from one of the city's myriad Pentoshi restaurants next time, he settled in front of the TV with a bottle of Arbour Red.

Maybe it was because he'd barely drunk any alcohol at all since the accident that the wine affected him more than it should have. Or maybe it was just a bad idea to combine alcohol and painkillers, even if it had been hours since he'd last taken any. Whatever the reason, he woke up on the couch, hours later, to find the TV bathing the living room in soft, flickering light, and his head tilted at an angle that had set off a throbbing pain that started in his neck and snaked up over his head all the way to his forehead.

Wincing as he lifted his head, Jaime reached for the remote and switched off the TV. The only remaining source of light was the lamp in the corner of the room. Just a single light, by itself. He didn't know why that should make him feel worse, but that problem, at least, was easily solved. Jaime switched on the overhead lights before turning off the lamp. There. It wasn't alone at all.

He went through his bedtime routine on autopilot, brushing his teeth out of habit more than any real care about possible tooth decay. What did the fate of a tooth or two matter, in the broader scheme of things, when he'd lost… almost everything?

Jaime kicked off his shoes at the connecting door to the bedroom and shed his clothes one by one as he made his way to the bed. Naked, he got beneath the covers, reached out to turn off the bedside lamp, closed his eyes, and… didn't sleep. Just like every other fucking night since the accident.

He'd thought—he'd _really_ thought—that that massage this morning might have had some lasting benefit. More fool him. It was going to take more than one single massage to make much difference to the level of pain he'd been living in since he woke up in hospital and discovered the mangled wreckage of what used to be his hand.

The massage _had_ made some difference at the time, though, and not only to his hand. It was as if his whole body had come properly back to life the moment Brienne had first touched him. He's been truly _aware_ of something outside of himself for the first time since he'd seen that flash of the knife blade the night that his life changed forever. The soft, purposeful slide of her fingers along his arm as she'd rubbed the lotion into his skin had been soothing, relaxing, but also _not_ , in a way he couldn't quite identify.

Not right then.

He'd tensed up, immediately, the moment she'd touched his hand. It had taken a great deal of effort, and no small amount of additional pain, but he'd forced his fingers to unclench as much as they could. And then she'd started massaging his hand.

Jaime hadn't expected it to have much effect on his pain levels. He hadn't expected it to have _any_ effect on his pain levels. But it was clear that Brienne hadn't been bullshitting when she told him she was good at what she did, because after a few minutes there could be no denying it.

Relief. Blessed relief.

Maybe he'd let out a sigh, because she paused in her ministrations to look at him with those deep blue eyes of hers and then, of all possible moments she could have chosen, she'd asked him to tell her if it hurt too much—right then, when the pain was actually less for the first time in what felt like forever.

He'd told her to keep going—as if anything in the world right then would have been able to persuade him to stop her—and she'd turned his hand over.

She was a physiotherapist. She must have seen far worse than the mess that was the palm of his hand, and yet he'd tensed up again. He couldn't help it. But she'd got to work, coaxing the added tension out of his hand and then banishing some of the pain along with it.

And then she'd started stroking his thumb, and the massage had abruptly turned into something else entirely. Oh, not on Brienne's side. She was the consummate professional. But Jaime had become acutely aware that the therapeutic aspects of the current situation were suddenly the last thing on his mind.

Constant pain had a way of dulling all other sensation, he'd found in the weeks since… well, _since_. He'd had no interest—less than no interest—in any sort of touch in all that time, and sex least of all. But Brienne Tarth took his thumb in her hand—just that—and all of a sudden his jeans had been uncomfortably tight.

His hand slid down beneath the covers. He was half-hard, just remembering that first touch of her fingers at the base of his c- thumb. He remembered how she'd made her way, in agonisingly slow, swirling movements, up his… appendage. His own hand moved now, trying to mimic the vividly remembered touch of hers, trying to find those same circular actions, trying to find the steady, captivating rhythm that had thrummed all through him.

He failed spectacularly.

Jaime let out an expletive that he'd kept himself from using—for entirely different reasons—during the massage. His fingers weren't cooperating, that was the problem. That, and the fact that there weren't enough of them. The last time he'd touched himself this way his hand had been whole.

He lay there, staring up into the darkness, feeling more utterly useless than at any time since he'd first tried to feed himself with his left hand.

Brienne had rubbed some sort of oil or lotion onto his skin when she'd massaged his hand, though. Lubrication never hurt. There was always the tube of KY in his bedside drawer, but it seemed sort of… wrong—dishonourable somehow—to use that while thinking about the touch of Brienne's fingers, when her only goal had been to ease his pain.

He got up and went to look through the bathroom cabinets. The housekeeping service was always leaving little sample bottles of the-gods-knew-what for him to try out—presumably in the hope that he would want to order a large bottle at a no doubt exorbitant price. He'd never given any of them more than a cursory glance, but now…

He grabbed a small—left—handful of bottles and set them out along the front of the vanity. The first one he opened almost made his eyes water with the amount of lavender in it. Who had thought that would be something he might want to try even once? The contents of the second bottle wasn't quite as strong, but it smelled weirdly marine, in the manner of salt water with a faint underlying suggestion of rotting seaweed on the beach. He didn't take more than one sniff of that one. The third one was very woodsy and outdoorsy, and the first line of the Lumberjack Song flitted through his mind before he could stop it.

He threw that one in the bin.

The last bottle, night jasmine, had seemed the least promising, which was why he had left it until last, but when he pushed the lid open and squirted a little onto his fingertip, the scent proved to be subtle and easy to ignore. He tossed the other two bottles into the bin, and took that one back to bed with him.

It was easier this time, with his hand covered in lotion, but his fingers still didn't move properly, didn't work the way he needed them to work.

Fuck. He was really going to have to take that range of movement exercise seriously.

He switched to his left hand and, like everything else he'd been doing with his left hand lately, it was awkward, but at least it meant he had five fingers to work with.

Jaime settled back in bed, in darkness, and let his mind wander wherever it wanted to go. But of course he already knew exactly where it wanted to go, so when it arrived at its destination his hand was ready, wrapped loosely around the base of his cock, as the memory of Brienne's voice told him to "close your eyes if you want."

Jaime closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath as his hand slipped up along his cock, feeling it stiffen and lengthen against his palm. He took another deep breath as he brought his hand back again, equally slowly, but his thumb was moving in leisurely, almost languorous circles now, taking its time, easing him into it, just like _Brienne_ …

He drew in another breath, and this time it left him in a shudder. But still he tried to keep it slow as he recalled the way he'd felt as Brienne had touched him, at the calm reassurance, the _safety_ , of her voice, telling him it was all right if he needed her to stop. _Don't stop! Don't stop!_ he'd cried silently, while his speaking voice had told her, in surprisingly normal tones, to keep going.

A few more strokes of his hand, never _quite_ reaching the head, and he'd found the rhythm—thrumming and thrumming and thrumming—his hips rolling with it, as his hand slid back and forth along his cock, faster than he'd intended or thought he wanted, his thumb still circling, circling, clumsier than _her_ touch but still good, so good. He'd forgotten how it could feel, just letting sensation take you, _pleasant_ sensation. Better than merely pleasant. So much better that he wanted it to just go on and on. Part of him would have spent half the night reliving those few minutes this morning, but the other part of him was close now, so, so close. He wanted to just keep going, but the destination beckoned, almost impossible to resist... He saw her eyes, as blue and endlessly deep as the ocean, as her hand found the tip and gave a gentle squeeze just as his own hand slipped up over the head of his cock and…

He cried out, a long, low howl of a noise that might have had part of her name in it somewhere, as the world went from blue to bright light behind his eyelids, while his cock pulsed hard against his belly and he spent every drop he had in him.

His heart was thundering in his chest as he came back to himself, heaving for breath, over and over. It took a long time for his body to calm, or at least it might have been a long time. It was hard to tell. It was as if time had ceased to pass at the usual speed, or had simply lost all meaning, there in the dark where no one could see—not even him.

Eventually, Jaime reached for the box of tissues that every sensible man kept by the bed and cleaned himself up.

He rolled closer to the middle of the bed to avoid the wet spot, closed his eyes, and knew no more until morning.

~*~

Jaime's king mattress was one of the very best that money could buy. It promised a restful night's sleep while providing almost unimaginable levels of comfort and support. And yet, when Jaime woke the next morning, his first thought was that there was an ache somewhere deep between his shoulder blades, and when he lifted his head he discovered that his neck hurt like the blazes.

Still, he'd actually slept, uninterrupted, for hours. Despite the pain in his upper back—plus the ever-present pain in his hand—he felt better than he had at the beginning of any day since… that last day.

He hauled himself out of bed and went off to the bathroom for a long, satisfying morning piss. A flash of memory as he took himself in hand had him going back over the thoughts he'd had in bed last night, and by the time he was done at the toilet, his morning wood was still very much in evidence.

Jaime wriggled his shoulders. He felt… stiff, and not exactly clean and fresh with it. When was the last time he'd taken a shower? Not yesterday, or the day before. So… three days? At least. How often he bathed didn't really matter that much any more, though, when his average daily amount of human interaction was a two sentence exchange with the woman from housekeeping, or less than that with the food delivery guy at the front door.

But Brienne was coming today. She'd be visiting him every day this week. They'd got off on the wrong foot yesterday, but by the end of the session things had improved. His cock twitched, as the talkative little voice in his mind helpfully reminded him of just how _much_ things had improved when Brienne had massaged his hand. The point was, though, that now they had achieved a better level of understanding, maybe she'd talk to him a bit, about more than just the exercises he hadn't been doing and how much pain he was in.

He huffed an annoyed breath out through clenched teeth. By all the gods, when had he become so pathetic and needy? He didn't need Brienne Tarth to talk to him. He had plenty of people he could talk to. If he wanted. He just didn't want to, but not because _he_ had any sort of problem. No, they were the ones with the problem. As soon as someone knew about his hand, conversation became immediately awkward. And the story of the attack had been all over the news, so at this point absolutely everybody knew. They didn't even have to see his hand. Just talking on the phone for a few minutes was more than enough for him to be able to tell what they were thinking. Nobody thought of him as Jaime Lannister any more. It was as if he himself, in his entirety, had been reduced to his injury. That's all that was left. So it was no wonder—was it?—that he didn't go out of his way to interact with other people. Not even his own family.

Especially not his own family.

Brienne was the only one who hadn't turned a hair at the sight of his hand. Of course, she must be used to seeing such things, in her line of work, but quite apart from that, she'd been annoyed with him, right at the beginning. Just as if he was any person who'd said something to irritate her. She'd stood her ground with him, too, and told him to let her help him. Not many people had stood up to him, challenged him in any way, either before or since the accident. And then she'd touched him and...

He should shower, and maybe wash his hair.

Jaime stepped into the shower, and turned the water temperature up as high as he could bear. The water blasted out of the raindrop shower head, hot needles on his aching shoulders and neck. It helped, a bit—until he made the mistake of moving his arm, and his right hand was hit directly by the almost scalding spray.

He didn't scream. He didn't. But maybe he let out some sort of noise. He fumbled with the shower control and quickly lowered both the heat and the water pressure. That was better. The water flowed in a rivulet from his shoulder down his arm, and over his hand, and he stood there and let the calm flow with it as his muscles slowly relaxed.

Eventually, he reached for the shower gel. It was his usual sort, and smelled of nothing in particular, though the side of the bottle claimed that it contained cucumber. Maybe he should ask housekeeping to include something with cucumber in it in the next selection of hand lotions that they left in his bathroom cabinet—though the night jasmine lotion hadn't wound up being too bad…

His cock twitched again as the hot water slushed down from his belly, and a moment later his hand was there. He took care this time, as much as he possibly could, as his fingers curled around his cock, but pain still knifed through his palm at the movement, and after a moment he changed hands. Using his left hand still didn't come naturally, but at least it didn't hurt as he slipped it along the length of his cock.

He closed his eyes and took himself back to yesterday, and last night, and then it wasn't his own hand he could feel on him, and it wasn't slathered in cucumber shower gel, but instead working some sort of nondescript lotion into his aching flesh. His breath came deep and slow, and then not so slow…

Before long he was gasping his pleasure while the water kept beating down on him, as relentless as his climax and the memory of a steady blue gaze that wouldn't let him look away.

At least this time it was easier to clean himself up afterwards. He very carefully didn't think about anything but the task at hand, and after a moment he reached for the shampoo.

~*~

Jaime took more time than usual deciding what to wear that day—which was to say, he took any time _at all_ thinking about what he was going to wear, instead of just grabbing a pair of jeans and a random t-shirt as he'd done every day since he'd come home from hospital.

All of his t-shirts hung loose and shapeless on him now. Had he really lost so much weight? He considered a button down shirt, but no, he wanted to be as comfortable as possible while Brienne did… what she did. In the end, he found an old t-shirt that he'd almost forgotten about, stuck right at the back of a drawer. It was plain black, apart from the words 'take the black' written in red across the chest. On the back was a picture of the album cover art for 'The Wall', together with a list of The Night's Watch's tour dates throughout Westeros… gods, it must be eleven years ago now.

He'd been disillusioned and looking for something different that summer, right after Arthur Dayne and Gerold Hightower left Kingsguard. That had also been soon after the whole… thing with Aerys Targaryen had happened, when his life had been turned upside down in every other way, so it was sort of fitting that Kingsguard had fallen apart at the same time that he did. It had continued on, a shadow of its former self, with Barristan Selmy on lead vocals _and_ guitar, but it wasn't the same group he'd worshipped all through his teenage years.

It would be hard to find any two acts as different as Kingsguard and The Night's Watch, even now. He'd only gone to one Night's Watch concert, and that had been enough to wake him up, to make him realise that it was all just music, nothing more and nothing less. None of it deserved anything beyond his fleeting attention, much less his devotion.

And yet somehow he'd never thrown out that t-shirt. He'd filled out a bit in the last eleven years, he discovered once he tried it on, and then lost most of it again in the past weeks. The t-shirt was still a little tight, but it would do. After that, it was simple to dig out a pair of black jeans to go with it. He ignored the trainers—them and their laces—that he normally would have matched with jeans and a t-shirt, and slipped his feet into a pair of flip-flops.

Dressed at last, Jaime ran a comb through his hair and then wandered out of the bedroom in search of breakfast, or coffee, anyway. The thought of food still left him disinterested at best, and faintly nauseated at worst. After barely more than a push of a button and a short wait—but then he wouldn't expect anything less of a 20,000 dragon appliance—he breathed in the aroma of his favourite seven bean blend before sitting down at the kitchen counter with his coffee to read the morning papers on his tablet.

He lasted somewhat less than five minutes. The latest political scandal blaring from the front page of The King's Landing Times didn't hold his interest, while the business and financial section of the Oldtown Journal just reminded him of who he no longer was. He had no interest in the gossip rags or… anything, really.

Jaime got up, not sure what he was going to do next, except that reading about the outside world wasn't it. He sat down at the kitchen table, sipping his coffee as he stared out the window at the bay. There wasn't much to see; the fog was heavy this morning, and showed no signs of lifting just yet. He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the tabletop—and realised that he'd yet to practise the finger exercises for his right hand that Brienne had taken him through yesterday. She'd told him to do five of each.

He held up his right hand and looked it over, in a way he'd rarely done at any time since the night he'd lost those two fingers. It was an ugly thing. Ugly and damn near useless. But it didn't have to stay quite as useless as it was now. That's what Brienne had said. He just had to do those exercises every day, and his fingers would remember how to move properly again. Poof! Just like magic.

He could feel the cynical twist of his smile as he laid his right hand on the table and started with the range of movement exercise. The smile had turned to a grimace by the time he finished doing the exercise for the fifth time. It was only sheer stubbornness that made him follow up with the finger straightening exercise, and then move on to the one for strengthening his grip.

By the time he was done with all of them, his lower lip was smarting where his teeth had sunk into it, and his vision was glassy with the shimmer of unshed tears—tears of utter frustration, and possibly a little pain as well. Just a little.

He wished Brienne were here, ready with her bottle of lotion and her soothing touch. Well, not just soothing, but she didn't have to know about his other response. He was fairly sure she hadn't noticed his semi hard-on yesterday; she'd been absorbed in her task and her attention had been focused on his hand. Or maybe she had noticed and politely pretended that she hadn't. Perhaps she had this effect on her patients all the time, and she made a point of not looking in directions that might embarrass them both.

Gods, no wonder she'd been booked up for the rest of the week. All of her other male patients, and some of the women too, probably wished that they could employ her services every day. But Jaime was the one who had her, for the entire week.

He glanced at the clock, a hideous thing in the shape of a snarling lion's face, only made worse by the fact that it was gilded all over in twenty-four karat gold. It would have been kitsch if it hadn't been so very expensive, and was a gift from his brother, naturally. At least it kept accurate time.

He had less than half an hour to wait until Brienne arrived.

Jaime sipped his coffee and did _not_ look up at the clock again. Not even once, though he may have glanced at his watch a time or two.

He drained his mug and went to make another coffee. By the time he got to the end of that one, and had made a quick trip to the bathroom to brush his teeth, there were only five minutes left to wait and-

The intercom buzzed.

He didn't leap up from his chair. He didn't. But he still made it across the room in something close to record time.

" _Sorry I'm a few minutes early,_ " Brienne said. Even through the fuzzy video, her gaze was direct and her eyes that same piercing blue he remembered from yesterday. " _I think I missed every red light between here and Flea Bottom._ " So she lived down by the water. Useful to know. " _I hope that's all right._ "

"Fine. Come on up," Jaime said, buzzing her in.

A minute or two later, her knock came at the door.

Jaime made a point of taking his empty coffee mug to the sink, and then walking to the front door at a leisurely pace. He opened the door to her, and because they were almost of a height he didn't miss the sudden little flare of her pupils as Brienne took in the sight of him in the tight-fitting black t-shirt. He'd been used to that reaction, almost as a matter of course, since he'd started working out in earnest in his late teens and his build had begun to catch up with his height. And then, since the accident, he'd had to become used to the absence of that reaction.

Until now.

"Hello, Jaime," Brienne said, picking up her massage table.

"Come in," he said, and the smile that touched his lips as he stepped back out of the way to let her through felt almost warm.


	3. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second massage gets underway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Firesign, Nire, Samirant and Slipsthrufingers for looking this chapter over.

"How are you, Jaime?" Brienne asked, once they were seated side by side at the kitchen table.

"Fine. How are you?" So they were going to go the 'idle pleasantries' route. He sent her a slightly mocking little look from beneath half-closed lashes along with the enquiry about her health.

"I am well," Brienne replied composedly, as if his look had had no effect. Her gaze was direct, pale eyebrows slightly raised in question. "But tell me how _you_ are."

Oh. She really wanted to know. For a second he could feel a pleasant warmth building, deep in his belly. He almost felt as if he might flush, which was ridiculous, so of course he didn't do it—but mainly because after another second he realised the truth. She didn't _really_ want to know how he was. Not him, Jaime, the person. She was his physiotherapist, and she was asking about his physical state. That was all.

"The hand still hurts," he reported, trying for a businesslike tone. "The massage helped for a while yesterday, but then the pain set back in. I managed to get something like a proper night's sleep last night, though." And wouldn't she be the one flushing if she could read his mind and find out exactly _how_ he'd got to sleep last night. He couldn't keep the slight smirk off his face, and it was enough to make Brienne's lips tighten.

"Sleep is the great healer," she said flatly. It sounded more like a memorised statement—which it probably was—than the reassurance that it could have been if Jaime had been… well, pretty much anyone else. Brienne reached down into her bag to retrieve a towel, though of course that also gave her the excuse not to meet his eyes for a moment. She didn't look at him again until the towel was spread out on the table in front of them, just like last time. "Okay, let's take a look at your hand. If you'd just lay your arm down… Yes, that's right."

He didn't look while she examined his hand, and when she took his mid- _right_ finger in her own hand and gently tried to uncurl it a little, he bit his lip and actually closed his eyes.

"Jaime." Brienne's voice was as gentle as her touch, and somehow that was harder to take than when she'd been short with him. "I know that it hurts, but your finger is moving a little better today. The improvement is slight since yesterday, but I can tell the difference."

He opened his eyes to find her smiling encouragingly at him, as if she were a teacher and he a child whose work she'd just marked as 'improving'. He hated being patronised; he'd had all too much of it since the moment he'd woken up in hospital unsure where he was or what had happened to him. The smile he returned to her was deadly sharp.

"And are you going to pat me on the head and tell me I've been a good boy? Maybe offer me a sweet from the jar you keep in your bag if I've been _really_ good?"

She kept smiling, but the warmth died in her eyes. "I was just telling you the truth. In my professional opinion, the exercises you've been doing are already beginning to have an effect."

Jaime closed his eyes again, and let out a long breath before opening them. "Can we start again?" he asked. It wasn't exactly an apology, but it was going to have to be enough. He could have said that he was out of practice when it came to dealing with people, or that he'd spent maybe a bit too much time alone lately, or that the only people he had had any real dealings with for weeks were people whose job it was to do what he said. He could have said that he was in pain, and his mood was… mercurial in a way that it hadn't been before. But he couldn't say any of that, because he didn't explain himself, not ever. A _Lannister_ didn't lower himself like that.

But Brienne seemed to understand anyway, because she smiled again, and if it still wasn't exactly a warm and personal smile, at least it wasn't hostile. "Why don't we just continue," she suggested. "Whatever's been said has… been said, and it's done with now."

"Agreed," he said.

"Turn over your hand so that I can take a look at the other side."

Jaime did as he was told, but then he asked, "You said you were travelling from Flea Bottom this morning. Is that where you live?" He wasn't sure if it was de rigueur to ask one's physiotherapist personal questions, but surely just enquiring about the area of the city where she lived wasn't crossing any sort of major professional boundary.

"Yes," Brienne answered easily—so apparently that sort of question was okay—as she pressed down very slightly on the back of his hand. "I've lived there for quite a while—since I first came to King's Landing as a student."

Jaime wasn't about to ask anything inane like 'Do you like it there?' so instead he said, "So you like it there."

Brienne let out a tiny huff of breath that might have been almost anything, maybe even the suggestion of a laugh. "It's convenient," she said, "and I'm used to it. But yes, you're right, I do like it there. I like to be able to smell the sea air. Have you lived here long?" she asked, deftly steering the conversation away from herself before it touched on more personal details.

"About a decade," he said, and winced as she pressed the heel of her hand down on his a bit more firmly, and then again. "I bought this place the year after the Valyrian League Games were held in Dorne."

He waited for a blink or a nod or even an "Ohhh" of recognition: any of the usual reactions he'd experienced time and time again when someone suddenly realised that he was _that_ Jaime Lannister, the young fencing champion who had become notorious after a certain event at those games. Not an event that had been anything like what was on the official program.

Brienne did none of those things, though. "I imagine that if you live with a view like that you're not in any hurry to move," she said, nodding towards the window. Out on the bay, the fog had mostly cleared and a tall ship, a replica of the sailing vessels that used to fill the harbour centuries ago, cut its way swiftly through the sparkling blue water with a good tailwind behind it. "All right, show me how you're doing with the range of movement exercise, starting with your longest finger."

It was clear that the conversation was over, at least for the time being. Jaime sighed, though he couldn't have said whether it was more because their talk was at an end or that now he had to start on that excruciating bloody exercise again.

His whole face was tense by the time he'd demonstrated the exercise with both fingers and his thumb.

"Does it hurt?" Brienne asked, concern—polite, _professional_ concern—written all over her expressive features. "More than it did yesterday, I mean," she added, just as Jaime was opening his mouth to tell her that _of course_ it bloody hurt.

"Maybe a bit," he admitted.

"And you did the exercises yesterday, five of each?"

"Yes. Well, I did them this morning," Jaime admitted, feeling a little like he had as a boy, carpeted in front of his father's desk after committing some minor infringement of The Rules, whether real or imagined.

Brienne nodded. "It's probably a good idea not to exercise the hand in the morning before our sess- Are you all right?"

Jaime nodded, but it took him several more seconds to stop choking, as he tried desperately to think of anything other than his morning shower. "Crumb," he gasped out at last.

"Do you need to get a glass of water before we continue?"

A denial came automatically to his lips, but, "Yes," was what he said. Jaime got up and filled a tall glass from the refrigerator's water dispenser, and gulped it all down in a matter of seconds. He left the empty glass in the sink beside his coffee cup, and returned to the table, telling himself to be calm and to focus.

It didn't help. He felt sort of jittery, and tense with it. It made the remaining exercises h- _difficult_ , and all the more painful. Jaime thought he'd been fairly successful in concealing the degree of his discomfort, but Brienne turned to him after only making him do the grip strengthening exercise a single time.

"We'll move on to the hand massage now. I can feel the tension building in your hand, and I want to try to ease that before we attempt anything else."

What else could Jaime do but agree? He watched as Brienne set up her massage table, quick and efficient. He knew better than to offer to help her with it, but he felt a little like a shag on a rock, standing there by himself with nothing to do.

Unbidden, the picture in his mind's eye morphed from a seabird standing alone on an ocean outcrop to different sorts of shags that were anything but lonely, and no rocks, but a rock hard.... His breath caught in his throat, and he only realised that he was cradling his right hand in his left when he became aware of the steady thump of his pulse against his fingertips. His left thumb was massaging the heel of his right hand, circling upwards towards his thumb and-

He dropped both hands at his sides, much good that it did. He didn't even need to feel for his pulse now. It was there, loud in his ears, throbbing all through his body.

"Whenever you're ready," Brienne said, indicating the massage table as she went to fetch a chair.

Jaime wasn't _ready_ but… well, it probably wasn't going to take long until he was, if what had happened yesterday was anything to go by. He got onto the massage table and lay back, trying to relax.

He was intending not to look at her this time, to just immerse himself in the physical sensation, but then he heard the soft click as Brienne flipped the top of the bottle of lotion open.

"What sort of lotion is that?" he asked, craning his neck to look at her.

"Just Oil of Lys," Brienne replied, holding the bottle up for him to see. It was white, with the name of the product inscribed in dark purple script, and looked vaguely familiar. "I promise it has absolutely nothing in common with Tears of Lys." She smiled briefly. It was clearly a joke that she kept ready to trot out if a patient asked about the lotion. As with almost everything else in their dealings, it was nothing personal. He was just another patient, at least as far as Brienne was concerned.

Jaime wished he could persuade his body to believe that, but it refused to listen, and he couldn't deny it what it wanted. Not when her massage and its unintended effects were the only reason he was feeling any better at all.

He watched as she rubbed the lotion between her palms, and lifted his arm before she had a chance to ask him to do it. And then he felt the first long stroke of her hands on his. It had been almost twenty-four hours; it felt more like a year, he'd been thinking about it, _longing_ for it, so much.

It hurt. He'd forgotten that that would be part of it, that her touch didn't immediately banish every last skerrick of pain and replace it with a different sort of ache. Jaime gritted his teeth as Brienne's thumbs rubbed back and forth along the back of his hand, and didn't relax his jaws when she started working on his palm.

The pain didn't leave him all at once. Instead, it subsided so slowly that he didn't notice, until Brienne turned her attention to his fingers and he realised that at some point his teeth had unclenched. The pain ebbed away, a tiny bit more with each firm stroke, until Brienne took his longest finger in her hands and all thought of anything else fled for a moment or two.

Jaime drew in a slightly shaky breath. The reality of the feel of her hands on him effortlessly eclipsed the memory of it. It was… It was…

"Too much?" Brienne asked. "Remember that you can always tell me to stop, and I will."

Jaime shook his head. "It's fine. Don't stop," he said. _Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop!_

She didn't stop.

By the time she wrapped her fingers around his thumb and started that tantalising circular motion that had filled his dreams as well as his waking mind since yesterday, Jaime was focusing on his breathing. Deep breath in, wait, and deep breath out. Nice and steady. No gasping or panting allowed.

His stomach clenched when at last she gently squeezed the tip of his thumb. She probably meant it as a gesture of completion or something—See, this ordeal is done now!—but completion was something that Jaime was trying his very best not to think about. His jeans were uncomfortably tight at the crotch, more than they had been yesterday, and it took all his willpower not to reach down with his left hand and adjust himself. Only the thought of her likely mortification—and her almost certain refusal to return to treat him ever again, no matter how much he offered to pay—kept his arm lying rigidly at his side, his fingers clamped tightly around the edge of the table.

He tried to take a mental step back as Brienne started working on his index finger again, pulling gently now instead of the circular movements she'd used earlier. He tried to think objectively, clinically, about what she was doing, so he didn't get too worked up about it now, but he would still retain the detail, stored safely away in the back of his mind, ready to go over at his leisure… later.

Well, at least he tried.

He tried so _hard_.

He groaned, half in irritation with himself, half… not _irritation_.

"Everything okay?" Brienne enquired as she moved on to his other finger, pulling and—oh, gods— _squeezing_ that one in turn.

"Fine. Just fine," Jaime croaked, wondering if it was possible to die from pent up tension.

Brienne seemed to take him at his word, because then she took his thumb in her hands again. Jaime had to bite down on his lip and imagine… lying by The Wall, naked, in the snow, so numb with the cold that he couldn't feel anything.

She tugged gently at his thumb, and Jaime was suddenly back in bed last night, but this time he wasn't alone and it wasn't his hand strok-

Snow! Lots and lots of snow. And ice!

Brienne let go of his thumb and Jaime cleared his throat, swallowing hard.

"Not another crumb, I hope," Brienne said, stopping to squeeze out some more lotion before taking his right hand in a loose grip and running her hands along his forearm in languid strokes, one and then the other, and then the first again.

Jaime could only shake his head, not trusting himself to speak.

"There. That's done," Brienne said, and then her touch was gone from him.

Jaime felt the loss of her, felt bereft, which was ridiculous, because there was no reason why he should feel that way, except that he did. He sat up as she bent down to retrieve something—oh, the packet of wipes—from her bag. Jaime draped his left arm across the front of his body as nonchalantly as he could, left hand lying idly between his legs against his upper thigh so as to conceal the state of his crotch. It wasn't all that obvious, either the arm or the crotch, he thought, since his jeans constrained things down below to the point of discomfort, and yet Brienne's cheeks looked far pinker than he'd ever seen them when she wordlessly offered him the packet of wipes. He took a couple, more than a little awkwardly with his right hand, rather than move his left arm right then, and Brienne's expression brightened. She looked pleased, the corners of her mouth turning up into a small smile of approval.

Oh. He was using his right hand. He hadn't really had any choice right then, but she didn't know that.

Then again, looking at the way she was blushing, her many freckles standing out in stark relief against her flushed skin, maybe she did have a pretty good idea of why his left arm was so strategically placed.

But of course he would have to move his left arm after all if he was going to wipe the remaining lotion off his right hand and arm. He turned, intending to swing his legs over the side of the massage table and, incidentally, wind up facing away from Brienne. But the sudden movement sent a spike of pain from his shoulder up into his neck, reawakening the state he'd woken up in this morning.

He winced, and _of course_ Brienne saw.

"Does your back hurt?" she asked, somehow managing to be solicitous and briskly professional simultaneously.

"Not really," Jaime said.

Brienne's eyebrows rose, and he felt as if he couldn't escape the look in her eyes.

"It's my shoulders mainly," he admitted reluctantly. "And my neck. And sometimes my head. Sometimes I get headaches, I mean."

"Just since the incident?" Brienne asked.

"Of course just since 'the incident'," Jaime snapped, using air quotes for the last two words, and then wincing again because the remaining fingers of his right hand protested at the movement. "What? You think my body was a wreck before that? I may no longer be a professional athlete, but I've taken care of myself."

His tone was sharp, he knew that, but bloody hell, she deserved what she got when she asked questions whose answers were so completely obvious.

But Brienne ignored him. She didn't reply, but instead reached down into her bag again and took out a round piece of paper with a hole in the centre. She placed it over the face hole, near the top end of the massage table.

"Lie down on your stomach," she told him, "and I'll take a look at your shoulders and neck."

"Don't you need to be going? I thought your schedule was booked solid all week before I talked to Catelyn Stark yesterday."

"Ms Stark has given me a bit of flexibility when it comes to you, Mr Lannister. I have time to provide extra treatments if I think they're warranted."

"I thought we agreed yesterday that my name's Jaime."

"And I thought we agreed yesterday that you'd treat me with basic civility."

"Point," he said, and for some reason almost felt like grinning.

"Are you keeping score?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm a professional," Brienne reminded him, "and my time is valuable, so lie down on your front, _Jaime_ , and let me take a look at your neck."

He did as he was told. He didn't have to, of course, but he chose to, because doing what Brienne wanted meant more time lying there with her hands on him. And just thinking about it, well… if there had been room inside his jeans for his cock to twitch, it would have. It was not exactly comfortable, lying face down— _cock_ down—on the massage table, but at least Brienne couldn't see the effect she was continuing to have on him.

She moved to stand beside his head and then he felt her touch on his neck, her hand warm and dry against his skin. She was just feeling—assessing—he realised, before she made a proper beginning.

"What did the doctor say about the pain in your neck and shoulders?" Brienne asked.

"He said I hadn't broken anything, but that the fall to the pavement… that night… would have been jarring. He talked about muscles and soft tissue and… I wasn't really paying a great deal of attention at the time, to be honest." He spoke into the face hole, his voice slightly muffled.

Maybe Brienne nodded—Jaime didn't lift his head to see—and after a moment she said, "I can help with soft tissue work. You're carrying a lot of tension in your upper body, which is to be expected given all the physical strain you've been under recently."

"I'm glad to hear that you can help," Jaime muttered into the face hole, "considering the exorbitant price I'm paying for your services."

"Take your shirt off, please," Brienne said.

Jaime drew in a sharp breath. He held it for a second, and then forced himself to expel it again, very, very slowly. By the time he hauled himself up and swung his legs over the side of the table, Brienne was busying herself with the contents of her bag again. Jaime pulled off his t-shirt and tossed it across the room. He was back lying on his stomach—and on every other bit of the front side of his body—before Brienne turned around.

He heard the click as she opened the bottle of lotion, and he tensed just a little in anticipation of what was to come.

"I'm going to start with your lumbars," Brienne told him, a split second before he felt her hands on his lower back.

Jaime closed his eyes, not that he could see much anyway, and focused his attention on keeping his breath slow and even. On that, and on… _touch_.

Just as she'd done with his hand and fingers, Brienne exerted only gentle pressure on his back. There was no seeking out of tense muscles and digging in of thumbs. It seemed that the technique of back massage had moved on since he'd last had one during his fencing days.

Or maybe it was Brienne's own technique. Perhaps she simply had the gift of making the human body—his body—respond to her touch so that the treatment felt like a reward instead of a punishment. She was pressing one hand down on top of the other, he was pretty sure, feeling his flesh ripple as she pushed up from the small of his back in long, broad strokes, following the line of his backbone and then up over his shoulder, before taking the same path back down, and up again…

There was something deeply relaxing, almost hypnotising, about the rhythm that Brienne set. Jaime could feel his muscles loosening, letting go. He could have lain there happily until the end of time with her hands slowly stroking, up and down his back. But then, without warning, the tempo increased. She was going faster now. Still not really fast, but fast enough.

Jaime didn't want to think about _faster_. Not when he was just beginning to relax.

Not when he was so terribly, _terribly_ turned on.

He swallowed. "You said before that you came to King's Landing to study. Where did you grow up?"

She was silent for a moment. "I'm from the Stormlands. You've heard of the island of Tarth?"

"You're one of the Tarths of Tarth? I didn't think there were any left."

Brienne's hands stilled on his back. "There aren't any left, really, except for me," she said in a matter-of-fact sort of voice.

Jaime silently cursed himself for all kinds of fool. "Forget I asked. Feel free to ask me something. Anything you like," he added rashly.

Brienne's hands started moving again, circling his rotator cuff in broad sweeps now. Jaime bit his lip, wondering what she'd ask. There was so much to choose from, starting with Aerys, or even earlier, given the family he belonged to, and ending with that night on the street where _he_ had almost ended.

"Why is the intercom button downstairs labelled 'King'?" she asked. "When I pressed it yesterday morning, I was half-expecting to be told that I had the wrong apartment."

Jaime huffed an almost soundless laugh. Of everything she could have chosen... "It was like that when I bought the apartment. And no, before you ask, the previous owners weren't named King, either. I guess it must have been left over from the owners before them. I kept it, just as they must have done, to stop people who had no good reason to be here from finding out which apartment I live in." He didn't say that he enjoyed the irony of living under the name of King. He, Jaime Lannister, who'd gone down in infamy for doing what he'd had to do to stop 'King' Aerys Targaryen—fencing legend, team coach and murderous lunatic—from committing what would have been a far more infamous act. He waited for Brienne to ask about Aerys. It was the obvious question to follow up with.

"You realise it confuses the people who do have legitimate business with you, right?" she pointed out instead.

"Maybe, but only once. On the other hand, it continues to confuse the paps, and anyone else who might get curious, indefinitely."

He sighed down into the face hole. Her hands were still circling around his rotator cuff and he let himself lean into it, let himself feel it, the muscles slowly loosening and stretching until it felt as if his entire torso was lengthening, lengthening—and one bit in particular was lengthening more than the rest. He couldn't have stopped the slow throbbing of his cock if he'd wanted to. It was so full and heavy that it _ached_ , constrained tightly beneath his jeans.

It ached for Brienne's touch. The fact that it could never have that didn't seem to be detering it in the slightest.

He shifted against the massage table, trying and failing to find a more comfortable position. Maybe he let out a very slight groan, because Brienne was immediately all concern.

"Too hard?" she asked.

"Yes," Jaime said, before his brain caught up with his mouth. "I mean no," he added quickly when her hands stilled against his back. "Keep going."

"You're sure?"

He turned his head to find her standing beside the massage table, staring down at him, and the look in her eyes… It didn't quite match the steady, dispassionate tone of her voice. Jaime wasn't sure quite what it meant, except that what he was seeing was not just Brienne Tarth, physiotherapist.

"I'm sure," he said, though he was not sure what expression was on his own face, except that it was something other than the careful mask he usually wore when dealing with any medical professional.

She began again, moving up to work on the top of his shoulder—the trapezius muscles if he remembered correctly—with that same, sinuous motion of her hands, setting the rhythm, setting the rules. Jaime followed both, letting the rhythm take him, following where she led, until her hands made their way up past his shoulders to his neck. There, her movements changed, turning into something more like the sort of kneading he'd expected before this massage began, and-

 _Ahhh_.

Jaime could feel not just the tension but the pain itself draining away with each movement of Brienne's supple hands. He was breathing in time with her rhythm, inhaling with each firm stroke across his neck, and exhaling as her hands retraced their path.

He would have relaxed, and maybe zoned out completely, if he hadn't had to concentrate on preventing his hips from joining in with that seductive rhythm.

His breath caught.

 _Seductive_.

He groaned, and this time he didn't try to hold it back. There was just _too much_ , all bottled up inside, and something had to give. Better this than the zip of his jeans. He wanted her to continue touching him, for the rest of eternity if possible, but he didn't just want that. He was greedy. He wanted more. He wanted… He wanted…

He wanted _her_.

"That should do it for today," Brienne said, lifting her hands off him. Just like that. No warning.

He lifted his head, and there she was, standing in front of him.

Jaime couldn't help it. He just lay there and stared at her.

She stared right back. There was something strong and compelling in her expression that made it impossible to look away. Her eyes were a blue so deep and dark that whatever emotion lurked in them should have been unknowable—but Jaime knew. Or thought he knew. Or hoped he knew.

Brienne swallowed. "Do you mind if I get a glass of water before I go? My throat's a bit dry. I've never really got used to all the dust and grime of the city streets, so perhaps when I was walking here from my car... Or maybe the air conditioning's turned up high? I-" She broke off and looked away.

Jaime kept watching her, fascinated. He'd never heard her say so much at one time since the moment they met—had it really been only yesterday?—except when she'd been annoyed with him.

Whatever else she was right now, she wasn't annoyed.

And whatever else Jaime was right now, he wasn't in a fit state to get up off this table with Brienne looking on.

"Please, get some water or anything else in the fridge that you might want to drink." He waved a hand—his right hand, before he stopped to think about it, and winced a bit—toward the kitchen. "You saw which cabinet the glasses are kept in?"

"I'm sure I can find them," Brienne said, and turned away, looking as relieved as Jaime felt. Relieved, and something else.

Jaime stopped himself from thinking any more about what that something else might be. He had to get himself under control, and quickly. Thoughts of ice and snow and the freezing fucking North weren't going to cut it this time.

He closed his eyes, and took himself back to that day almost twelve years ago. He made himself dwell on the pool of blood. So much blood, so red, so final, and all his fault. His fault, too, that he didn't regret doing it for even a second, regardless of the sort of person that made him, at least in other people's eyes.

He let out a deep breath, full of weariness and… not pain. He blinked. He hadn't imagined it before, when he'd felt as if the pain was draining away, and now something else had been draining away, too, or at least calming down a bit. But then, that had been the whole point. Thoughts of Aerys always had a dampening effect on his… enthusiasm.

Jaime lifted himself up on his left hand, a bit gingerly, and then rolled into a sitting position before getting to his feet. He'd retrieved his t-shirt in a matter of seconds, and was standing as nonchalantly as it was possible to be while bare-chested and with a t-shirt held strategically in front of him, when Brienne returned from the kitchen area.

She tried a half-smile as she turned towards him, but it seemed to die on her lips as she looked at him properly. Did her gaze flicker down and then quickly up again? Or was he just more self-conscious than he'd been since he was fifteen and had had what had seemed like an almost constant erection?

"You should probably have a shower," Brienne said, and then, unaccountably, blushed a furious shade of red. "To wash off the lotion, I mean," she added, turning quickly to remove the paper from the face hole and fold up her massage table.

She tucked the massage table under one arm, slung her bag over the opposite shoulder, and didn't say another word as Jaime saw her to the door.

"Until tomorrow, then," she said, darting a quick glance at him as he opened the door for her.

Jaime was about to reply, but instead someone else squeaked in surprise. The woman from the housekeeping service was standing on the other side of the door, still holding out the spare key that she'd been about to insert in the lock.

"Mr Lannister!" she said, and, after a second of standing there, looking like a stunned mullet, at least had the grace to step back out of the way before Jaime had to tell her to.

"Until tomorrow, Brienne," Jaime said.

He continued to stand there, watching, as she waited for the lift. He was still there when the lift arrived, and he didn't move after Brienne stepped into it and turned around to press the button that would take her to the ground floor. She lifted a hand in a small, awkward wave as she caught sight of him. He lifted a hand—his right hand—in response but the lift doors were already closing, and then she was gone.

The woman from housekeeping cleared her throat.

"I'd like you to obtain a bottle of hand lotion for me," he told her.

Instantly, the hint of irritation on the woman's face smoothed out into polite helpfulness. "Of course, Mr Lannister. Which of our exclusive products do you wish to order?"

"Oil of Lys," he said, stepping aside at last to let her in through the doorway.

"That's not one of our products, Mr Lannister. It's just an ordinary pharmacy brand." The woman frowned in faint disapproval.

"Then go to a pharmacy and get a bottle of it for me," he said. "And if that's too hard, I can always employ a different company to look after my apartment."

"I'll see what I can do," the woman promised, all trace of frown suddenly gone.

"Just get it," he told her. "I'll expect to see it sitting on the bathroom vanity as soon as you arrive tomorrow."

The woman nodded, biting her lip, probably to stop herself from saying something that she would almost certainly regret.

"Leave the bathroom until last," he said. "I'm going to take a shower."

The woman nodded again, and headed towards the kitchen.

Jaime didn't wait around to watch her go. He all but bolted for the bathroom, making very sure to lock the door behind him.

He stripped off his jeans and underwear, still half-hard despite all his efforts to the contrary, and stepped into the shower. He turned the water on at full blast, and let it pummel his shoulders, harder than the pressure of Brienne's hands on him and with none of her finesse. But his hand was already going to his cock. This time he didn't need shower gel or lotion or lube. He didn't need anything but his own hand and the memory of Brienne, her hands on him, making him feel, her eyes on him, _making him feel_ , and his eyes on her, the sight of her making him want and want and want…

He came with a jerk, spurting against the tiles, as he held his right arm hard against his mouth to muffle his cry of release.

He stood there, gasping, afterwards, before he slumped against the wall, and still all he could think about was not just her touch on him but how much he'd wanted to touch her in return. He'd wanted to turn around and kiss her even before he'd looked up and found her eyes on him, but after he'd seen her standing there, looking back at him, it had been all he could do to stop himself from leaping up off the table and pushing her up against the wall. It was lucky that the massage had ended when it did.

Not that it really mattered now.

Jaime was well and truly fucked, but just not in the way he wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **ETA 26 Feb:** It's okay, this thing will be more than four chapters! I posted Chapter 3 yesterday when I was exhausted at the end of an INSANELY busy day and forgot to increase the total number of chapters. I've now fixed that.


	4. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne's day continues as usual. Until it doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Samirant and Firesign for looking over this chapter for me.

Brienne was still holding her hand up in farewell, like an idiot, as the lift doors closed. She dropped her hand and sagged against the side of the lift, feeling the muscles of her face relax as she released the professional mask she'd been holding in place for what felt like hours.

Gods.

She'd been warned about this sort of situation, but she'd never expected to find herself having to deal with it. At uni one of her lecturers had touched on the subject briefly, during the unit devoted to ethics, and solemnly told Brienne and her fellow students that it was essential to maintain a polite, friendly but above all _professional_ distance from patients at all times. Brienne had nodded just as solemnly and scribbled a note about it but she hadn't really believed that it was a problem she'd have to deal with. She couldn't imagine ever conducting herself in anything but a professional manner. It had all been so easy then, when it was only theory.

Later, when Brienne had done her first placement at the Winterfell Clinic and theory had turned into practice, she still hadn't expected that keeping a proper distance would ever be an issue for her. Catelyn had explained that sometimes her patients might have involuntary responses to the treatments that she applied. The human body reacted to touch; it was as simple as that. And Brienne had soon found that that was true. There had been an involuntary twitch under a pair of loose track pants here, a peaked nipple beneath a thin t-shirt there, but Brienne had taken those reactions for what they were: nothing personal. And besides, when someone looked the way she did, how could any reaction from a patient, however intimate, _ever_ be personal? She would maintain a flow of cheerful, inconsequential conversation as she continued to work on the patient, and the moment would soon pass.

That was the way it had always been, until today.

Even when she'd lifted her eyes briefly as she massaged Jaime's hand and spotted the telltale bulge at his crotch, Brienne had still told herself that it was just a basic bodily reaction, like any other. Nothing personal. And yes, she'd felt the heat rush into her cheeks as she forced her full attention back on the hand she was treating, but gods, who wouldn't blush at least a little when confronted with that particular sight? None of her other male patients had ever had such an… obvious reaction to her touch before. And none of them had ever looked like… like _that_ , all tall and chisel-featured and perfectly proportioned and… and _golden_ , either.

Her own reaction should have been like a red flag waving at her, of course, a warning sign that she was treading dangerous ground, but she'd ignored it—right up until Jaime Lannister had taken off his shirt for a remedial massage and…

Brienne buried her face in her free hand.

Gods.

She'd never before looked at a patient's bare back and found herself wanting to press a kiss between his shoulder blades. She'd had to remind herself— _remind herself!_ —that she was a professional, and that her touch on her patient must remain one hundred per cent professional, regardless of any thoughts that might cross her mind before she could stop them.

Brienne let her hand fall slowly from her face as the lift reached the ground floor and the doors opened. She tried not to think about anything but her treatment table as she manoeuvred it awkwardly out of the lift, and crossed the lobby. She tried _very hard_ not to think about the fact that even now Jaime Lannister was only a couple of dozen floors above her head.

The apartment building's glass entrance doors slid open at her approach, and the steamy heat of the King's Landing summer morning enveloped her as she stepped outside. Almost immediately, she could feel the sweat at her brow and along the side of her neck. It was already a hot day, and only going to get hotter. She reached into the side pocket of her bag for her sunglasses. They didn't do much to help with the brightness and the heat, though. They just disguised it for the moment. Brienne knew it was still there—especially the heat.

She stopped at the cafe next door to the apartment building to buy a bottle of water.

"Warm day," said the guy at the counter as she paid, and Brienne knew it was a polite way of telling her that her face was a blotchy, unattractive pink.

Back on the street again, she tipped back her head and took a long swig from the bottle, suddenly conscious of the working of her throat muscles as she gulped down the water.

She was still feeling overheated when she made it back to her car, only a block away from Jaime's apartment building, even though the water bottle was completely empty by then. She felt the trickle of sweat at the back of her neck, and got quickly into the car after putting her treatment table in the boot. The air conditioning came on full blast as she turned the key in the ignition, all cool relief against her sweaty skin, and yet _still_ she felt too hot.

Brienne turned off the ignition again and let her head fall against the steering wheel. It wasn't the sun that was making her feel hot, or not only that. She'd been feeling like this since long before she walked out of the air-conditioned comfort of Jaime Lannister's apartment. The heat had hit her first when she'd looked down at him—lying there half-naked on her treatment table, skin glistening in the morning light where she'd rubbed lotion into his back—and he had lifted his head and looked right back.

She hadn't been able to look away. Not for endless seconds, as the heat suffused her from head to toe. She'd asked for a glass of water, somehow, through parched lips, and found herself wondering how they could be so dry when her mouth was watering. She'd gabbled something—she couldn't remember what—and then forced herself to turn away, to fetch a glass of water, to _calm down_.

Brienne huffed an impatient sigh against the steering wheel: as if a drink of water would solve anything, then or now. She knew why she felt as she did. That look she'd shared with Jaime. That hadn't been just any look. It hadn't been the sort of look that a physiotherapist should ever share with her patient.

That look had been _personal_ , on both sides.

She couldn't tell Catelyn. She didn't want to see the look of disappointment on Catelyn's face, didn't want to fail her. No, she couldn't breathe a word about it to Catelyn, or anyone—particularly not Jaime himself. If she didn't acknowledge it out loud, then it didn't really exist. She could get through this week, make the rest of the home visits she'd committed to, and then, when it came time for the review, she'd ask Catelyn to hand over Jaime's case to someone else.

A loud, angry blare of a car horn made her lift her head. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Brienne saw a large, metallic gold SUV waiting next to the car parked behind her, its indicator light blinking. Parking spaces on the street were at a premium in this part of King's Landing. She'd been incredibly lucky to find this one, and apparently the driver of the SUV had felt much the same, until Brienne kept sitting there and failing to drive away.

Brienne didn't wave an apology—she'd had quite enough of entitled rich people for one day—but after taking a moment to look in the mirror as she smoothed down her hair, and checking that her seatbelt was properly fastened, she turned the key in the ignition again, and this time she pulled out and drove away.

She made it back to the office with a little time to spare before her next patient and was busy writing up her notes at her desk in the tiny shared office behind the treatment rooms when Catelyn poked her head around the door.

"Brienne," she said, pushing the door fully open and coming into the room. "I wanted to check that everything was going well with your home visits so far."

"Everything's fine," Brienne said, looking up from the screen and willing herself not to blush. "All of my at-home patients are cooperative and listening to my advice. I think Mrs Tyrell in particular looks forward to my visits. Her mind is still as sharp as a tack but she can't get out of the house easil-"

"What about Jaime Lannister?" Catelyn interrupted.

Brienne raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was a mildly surprised look and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders. "He's fine. He's doing the exercises I've suggested and responding to treatment."

"He hasn't been… difficult at all?"

"Well, a little at first. He wasn't exactly pleased when I turned up yesterday instead of you, but I think we've come to an understanding now." _Don't blush, don't blush, don't blush!_ Brienne told herself. "In terms of the treatment, I mean."

"He was certainly very sure that he wanted your services and no one else's when he called me after your session yesterday," Catelyn said dryly. "You'll tell me if he becomes difficult, or too demanding." It wasn't a question. "Be careful, Brienne. Yes, I have every faith in you"—she held up one hand when Brienne would have spoken—"but he's the sort of man who expects everything to be served up to him on a silver platter, regardless of how little he deserves… Well, just be careful with him. If he demands too much, or anything beyond exactly what you're there to provide, tell him to stop. And if he ignores that, pack up and leave."

Brienne nodded. "Of course, Catelyn. But I don't think it will come to that." _I won't let it,_ she thought. It would all be strictly professional, the model of what a physiotherapist's relationship with a patient should look like. She would not let Jaime Lannister rile her. She would not let him… stir her up in any way whatsoever. She would be calm and firm and professional. And if any less than professional thoughts should stray into her mind, well, that's where they would stay.

"It would be a great deal easier if he'd simply make an appointment to be treated here, rather than insisting on a home visit every day," Catelyn said with a grimace. "But he's a Lannister, and what a Lannister wants, a Lannister gets, and they don't care if they have to pay through the nose for it."

And of course that must be why Catelyn had taken Jaime on as a patient, the fact that he was willing to pay whatever was required to get what he wanted. Brienne didn't know exactly what Catelyn's—and the clinic's—financial situation was, but she was aware that there were no funds available for any discretionary spending, and that money in all aspects of Catelyn's life was generally tight. Maybe that was why Catelyn sounded so resentful of Jaime and what she clearly thought he stood for. Brienne thought that Catelyn might be wrong, though, at least when it came to Jaime's motives in this particular situation.

"I don't think it's a case of what a Lannister wants, a Lannister gets, in this case, Catelyn," she said. "Maybe not just that, anyway. He's… After seeing him twice, I'd say it's a bit more complicated than that."

Catelyn's gaze sharpened on Brienne's face. "What makes you say that?"

"I get the feeling… I don't think he leaves his apartment very often—or at all." It was only as Brienne uttered the words that her hunch firmed into near certainty. She'd seen how incredibly self-conscious he'd been about his hand even after she'd first started working on it yesterday. She would be willing to bet the contents of her next pay slip that Jaime didn't go out unless he had a choice about it—and he was in a position to make sure that he always had a choice.

Catelyn nodded slowly. "You could be right. Finding that your body suddenly doesn't work the way it always has, and that it never will again, can be a crushing blow to anyone, and for someone like Jaime Lannister…" She looked almost sympathetic for a second, but then she straightened her shoulders and resumed her usual no-nonsense expression. "All right, then, Brienne. I trust you to make the right call when it comes to treating any patient, and I won't make an exception for this one. Check in with me again after you see him on Friday, and we'll have a discussion about what the outcome of the review on Monday should be."

"Fine," Brienne said.

Catelyn nodded again, this time to indicate that the conversation was at an end, and disappeared back out the door.

Brienne slumped against the back of her chair, letting out a long sigh. It was probably the first time she'd ever been relieved to be out of Catelyn's presence. There was no denying that she _was_ relieved, though. She felt as if her guilty thoughts should have been written across her forehead or something, and yet Catelyn didn't seem to have picked up on them.

Brienne was glad about that, _fiercely_ glad. Catelyn would not have hesitated to replace her with one of the other physiotherapists on staff at the clinic if she'd had the slightest suspicion that Brienne's feelings for any patient were anything other than exactly what they should be. Brienne didn't want to be replaced—not yet—and not only because she didn't want to fail this assignment.

However unwise she knew it to be, she couldn’t deny to herself that she wanted to see Jaime again. It was as simple—and as complicated—as that.

Brienne let out another long sigh, and went back to working on her case notes. They were complete, if not entirely coherent, by the time Jeyne from reception came to tell her that her next appointment had arrived.

~*~

Brienne made it through the rest of the day, though when she looked back on it afterwards she found that she could remember precious little detail about anything that had happened after her conversation with Catelyn. Well, apart from the embarrassing moment when she'd asked Asha Greyjoy, her first patient of the afternoon, to take off her shirt and lie down. Asha had pointed out, with a slightly puzzled frown, that she was there because of an ankle injury so she didn't think that taking off her top was really necessary.

Brienne had apologised, and Asha had suggested with an understanding smile that they just start over—and that, of course, had reminded her of Jaime asking her almost the exact same thing earlier in the day. She'd told herself sharply to focus, and proceeded with the session.

By the time she got home a little after 6.30 that evening, she had no real recollection of any of the exercises she'd tried with Asha. The memory of Jaime Lannister, lifting his hand to wave goodbye as the lift door closed, in contrast, remained sharp and clear in her mind, just as it had all through the day.

She poured herself a large glass of wine. That was becoming a habit that she should probably nip in the bud, but she'd worry about that next week. This week, she needed the wine. She took a sip—more than a sip—and swallowed it down. It was a light, fruity red from the Reach, and it didn't taste too bad at all, though it was no Arbour Red.

Jaime Lannister probably drank nothing _but_ Arbour Red. That, or Arbour Gold.

Brienne closed her eyes and told herself to think about what she'd have for dinner—and to definitely, _definitely_ not wonder what anyone else might be eating tonight.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat down at the computer with her glass of wine and a pork and dragon pepper microwave meal on a bed of freshly steamed rice, and got to work on the latest module of her online course. Or, at least, she tried to. The food perked her up a bit after the long day, but she still found it almost impossible to concentrate on her course materials. At this rate, she was never going to get her specialist qualification in the treatment of sporting injuries and she'd wind up working at the Winterfell Clinic under the firm, kind but slightly suffocating supervision of Catelyn Stark for the rest of her life.

Brienne huffed out an exasperated breath. When had she become so melodramatic? All she had to do was concentrate and get it done. She'd done that plenty of times before.

Three hours later, her bowl and glass both long emptied and returned to the kitchen, Brienne gave up for the night. She got to her feet and did a few stretches, feeling the tension in her neck as it resisted her attempts to fully turn her head from side to side.

Her physiotherapy studies were leaving her in need of the attentions of a good physiotherapist. She laughed tiredly, though it really wasn't that funny, and shut down the computer before making her way through the apartment to the bathroom. A good hot shower would relieve the stiffness in her shoulders and neck and get them moving properly again.

She was right about that, but she'd forgotten that shutting herself in a small cubicle, with nothing to look at but tiles and glass obscured by steam, left her mind free to wander. And of course it wandered in the direction of Jaime Lannister, and not just the memory of his waving hand this time, but the even more vivid image of his naked back.

Brienne's lips were pressed against the cool glass side of the shower cubicle before she realised she'd even done it. She drew back quickly, but the imprint of her lips remained, clear against the fogged up glass, like a piece of damning evidence left at a crime scene.

In her mind's eye she saw that same shape, dark red lipstick against the golden skin of someone's back, and she imagined…

Argh! She let out a cry of utter frustration. She didn't imagine anything. Nothing! And she wasn't going to. She was going to wash her hair, and the rest of herself, and let the hot water beat down on her shoulders and neck for a while, and she wasn't going to think about anything at all while she did it.

She succeeded. Mostly.

Brienne felt calmer when she eventually stepped out of the shower, or told herself that she did, which was close enough to being the same thing. She went through the motions of her bedtime routine still trying not to think about… well, _anything_ , but also something in particular.

Which she was definitely not thinking about. At all.

She should have fallen asleep almost immediately, after a long and busy working day followed by an evening of nothing but study. But she didn't. She lay there in the darkness, first on her side, and then on her back, and then, finally, on her other side, before admitting defeat. Her body wouldn't relax, even though the stiffness from sitting too long at her desk had been sorted out by the hot shower.

Brienne rolled over onto her back again, sat up, and switched on her bedside lamp. She reached over to her bedside table and removed the charging cable from her tablet, and then, since it appeared she wasn't going to be sleeping anytime soon, she sat back against the pillows and started on the reading for the next module of her course.

It was one of those academic texts written in a dry as dust tone that managed to turn even a subject as vital as the human body in motion into something mind-numbingly boring. It should have made her nod off after less than five minutes, but after a quarter of an hour she let the tablet slip from her hands onto the covers. She hadn't made it past the first paragraph and her eyes were glazing over, but she was still wide awake.

She _needed_ sleep. Desperately. She wouldn't function properly tomorrow if she didn't get to sleep soon, and Brienne couldn't bear the thought of giving less than her all to any of her patients. Not even—especially not…

Argh!

Brienne plugged her tablet back in and returned it to the bedside table. As she did so, her eyes strayed down to the top drawer. She knew a foolproof way of getting to sleep, and the key to it was right there.

It would be quick and effective, she told herself as she took her trusty Qartheen wand out of the drawer. A simple bodily response that would release the right chemicals into her bloodstream to make her sleep. It was a natural sleeping pill, nothing more than that, and definitely nothing _personal_.

She lay back and pressed the head of the vibrator up between her thighs, turning it to the lowest setting and letting it buzz gently against her vulva.

Brienne focused on her breathing, keeping it deep and slow, encouraging the rest of her body to follow its lead and relax. She closed her eyes and turned her attention inward, not letting herself think of anything or anyone except herself, starting from her head, where if fell back against the pillows, to the light brush of her own fingers moving down along her clavicle and over the soft swell of her breast before they paused to circle her nipple, once, twice... She drew in a sharp breath as sensation arrowed from the tip of her breast down between her legs. Her inner muscles clenched as she felt the first stirrings of want kindle there.

She let out her breath in a deep sigh, every muscle in her body, it felt like, slowly unclenching, slowly letting go. Her breath was coming easier now. Everything was easier.

She turned the vibrator up a notch, and her breath caught.

Maybe this wasn't going to take all that long after all.

She flipped the switch higher, just shy of its highest setting, and her head pushed back hard into the pillows as her body tensed—but not in the way it had been when she started. This was a different, potentially more productive sort of tension. Brienne turned the vibrator back down to a slower, less demanding speed, and closed her eyes again, searching for just the right mental landscape to go with the physical one.

Tall. They were always tall, with broad shoulders and muscles that were nicely defined without being over the top, like a body-builder and… Oh. The fire inside almost went out. She banished all thoughts of body-builders, and searched her mind for something better. She'd always gone for an athletic sort of build. Broad shoulders, yes, and narrow hips, and long, strong legs. It was no wonder, really, that she'd noticed Renly even before he'd been so kind to her—taken pity, if she was being honest with herself—and danced with her when she'd been about to turn tail and run from that nightclub in tears.

He'd starred in her fantasies ever since, even though she'd discovered soon after that she _really_ wasn't Renly's type. Even though they were no longer students and rarely saw each other any more. Even though Renly was married to Loras Tyrell now.

Brienne summoned the memory of Renly that day at the beach, long ago, emerging from the surf wearing nothing but a tiny pair of black swimmers that left next to nothing to the imagination—and even less to Brienne's extremely active imagination. Her eyes had caressed the shape of him, standing there dripping wet and glistening in the sun, just before he turned, smiling, to say something to her, and her breath had caught in her throat…

She opened her eyes again.

That memory was the starting point for her sure-fire, never fail short-cut to an orgasm, the one she kept in reserve, like hoarded gold, for when she was most in need. Except that this time it _had_ failed. It had always made her breath catch, just like that first time.

Always, until now.

Brienne stared up into the darkness, feeling her way around the memory, trying to work out what was wrong. She could recall the details just as clearly as always, and yet… It was a pretty image, but no more than that. It was simply an aesthetically pleasing mental picture. That was it. There was no passion there, no fire.

She was aware that even the most beloved fantasy could lose its potency over time, but there'd been no hint that this one was fading last time she'd brought it to mind.

It had really picked a hell of a time to fail her. She was just going to have to try to get there without it.

She reached down and pushed the vibrator more firmly against her, moving it back and forth over her clit as she eased herself into it, increasing the speed by degrees.

It didn't have any real effect, except to overload her nerve endings with sensation. She turned the Qartheen wand back down to its lowest setting, and let out a frustrated sigh. Her body lingered sullenly at the same low level arousal it had been simmering at before she'd tried and failed to introduce the memory of Renly into the equation. The state her body was in wasn't anything like close enough to what she needed as a starting point to push her over the edge, let alone to get her from there the rest of the way to what would now be somewhat less than a full night's sleep.

She was going to have to think of something else. Literally.

There was no point in trying to lie to herself. She was painfully aware that there was only one thing, one image, one _person_ that she wanted to think about, that she… wanted.

It was wrong. _So_ wrong.

Her vaginal muscles clenched, and she felt the flush of heat wash right through her body and flutter at her clit. Her hips wriggled involuntarily against the sheet. She wished she could have stopped herself, stopped every single one of those reactions, even though—thank the gods—there was no one else there to see. Not that stopping herself would have changed anything. Her body wanted to be wrong. It wanted to be _bad_.

The question was: was Brienne going to let it be bad?

The memory of Jaime Lannister came to her then, and she could no more stop that than anything else than her body wanted to do. She could still see him, so clearly, all long limbs, broad shoulders and golden perfection, an impossible man with an impossibly good looking face, lying back on her treatment table, sighing at her touch, as his hard cock strained against his jeans. Brienne could have reached out, so very easily, and placed her hand on him. She could have cupped his dick, felt the shape of him, unzipped his jeans and...

Brienne inhaled sharply, her clit pulsing as the breath caught in her throat. She let it out on a shuddering sigh and reached down to change the vibrator's speed to one of the middle settings, letting her hips arch and roll with it, over and over, feeling the tension build as she closed her eyes, saw her hand wrap itself around him, heard his groan of approval, and glanced up to find him watching her, the look in his eyes knowing and intent and _personal_. And then she was there, suddenly at the crest of the wave when a second ago she'd still been in the shallows, riding and riding and riding it, before it took her completely and she fell.

The vibrator was still buzzing against her as she came back to herself, too much for her to bear now. She turned it off and slipped it back into the bedside drawer before pulling the covers up to her chin.

Her fingers clutched the edge of the sheet tightly as she tried to ignore the way her clit still throbbed in the aftermath.

It could never happen again. Tonight had been an emergency, a desperate measure to get herself some sleep. She could never let herself think of it again, never mind… go there. Part of her—most of her, apart from the bit of her that was ready to pass out—was horrified that she'd even contemplated objectifying a patient like that, never mind what she'd actually done.

From now on, it would have to be as if she'd never taken the vibrator out of that drawer tonight, had never even thought of doing so. It would be just like that look that she had exchanged with Jaime this morning, that _personal_ look: if she never admitted that it had happened, then it never _had_ happened. She still had to look Jaime in the eye every day for the rest of the week, still had to be his physiotherapist. Still had to touch him with the cool detachment of the health professional as she assisted him in his recovery.

She was still telling herself that when sleep claimed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know. The chapter count has gone up again. There will be at least two more chapters, maybe more. I'll just keep adding them until I get to the end.


	5. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne arrives for her third session with Jaime.

Brienne didn't get out of the car immediately after parking the next morning, even though she was a couple of blocks from Jaime's apartment this time. Instead, she sat there and tried to banish every less than appropriate thought about Jaime from her memory before she assumed her health professional mask and had to face him.

The task proved to be more difficult than she'd expected. It was as if each memory of Jaime was lit up by a bright and lingering spotlight: the stretch of that too-tight black t-shirt across his chest after he opened the door to her yesterday, the glistening expanse of bare skin between his shoulder blades where she'd longed to press a kiss later, after she'd instructed him to take off the shirt. The way her hand had reached for the zip of his fly-

But no, that wasn't a memory. It was something that had never happened, just like the look they'd exchanged yesterday, and could never happen again in her thoughts or anywhere else.

Of course, telling herself not to think about that was just as effective as telling herself not to think about all the rest. It was like trying not to think about a pink elephant or a white bear; the more she tried not to remember it, the more she couldn't stop thinking about it. She should focus on something else, like the look of profound disapproval and, worse, disappointment that Catelyn would be sure to give her if she were to somehow find out about Brienne's most private thoughts.

Brienne clapped her hands over her eyes, trying to blot out everything, but it didn't work. Instead of Catelyn's look of dismay, all she could see was the expression on Jaime's face when their gazes had met and held yesterday: that thoroughly impossible, entirely personal look.

She groaned, and let her head fall back against the headrest. _Not good enough_ , she told herself. _Try harder._

Jaime was her patient. That was where she should start. He was her patient so she should do for him what she would do for any patient: think about what he needed and how best to deliver that.

Jaime needed her help, firstly in exercising his fingers and hand, and recovering as much movement as possible. And he needed her help in lessening some of the pain he'd been living with ever since he was attacked and injured. Brienne had been delivering on both of those fronts and she would continue to do so. But those things weren't all he needed. She hadn't forgotten the epiphany she'd had when she'd talked to Catelyn yesterday—that Jaime had almost certainly been living the life of a recluse since he came home from hospital.

That aspect of his situation technically wasn't any of her business—except that her physiotherapy treatments didn't exist in isolation. Even though she wasn't in a position to take a whole-of-body approach, factors like getting outside in the fresh air, taking exercise, and regular interactions with other people were all part of the healing process, and needed to be taken into consideration.

Brienne knew from Jaime's case file that he was unmarried. She'd seen no sign of anyone else inhabiting his apartment, either. It was clear that he lived alone, and he didn't appear to be involved in even a semi-serious relationship with anyone. In Brienne's experience, patients mentioned those closest to them pretty quickly—often during the initial consultation—particularly a spouse or romantic partner.

That left family and friends, but Jaime hadn't mentioned anyone visiting him, except for the doctor whose treatments had caused him so much pain. His brother was listed as his emergency contact in his patient details. Brienne wondered about this brother of his—she pulled out her tablet and checked the case file—this _Tyrion_ Lannister. Maybe she could steer the conversation in that direction while she worked on Jaime's hand today. And speaking—or at least thinking—of which… Brienne checked the time on her fitness tracker.

Oh, gods! She had barely more than five minutes left to get to Jaime's door if she wasn't going to be late. She stuffed the tablet back down into her bag, and got out of the car, rushing around to the boot to retrieve her treatment table. She set off at something close to a run, the table tucked under her arm banging awkwardly against her hip with every step she took.

It was another hot morning, and Brienne was breathing hard when at last she reached Jaime's building at two minutes past eleven. She could feel the sweat gathering in her armpits and beading at the back of her neck, and she was probably red-faced as well: about as far from a picture of poised, professional cool as it was possible to be. She winced, wondering if she'd actually bruised her hip, as she leaned forward to press the intercom button outside the entryway.

Jaime buzzed her in before she had the chance to even say her name. Brienne tried to pull herself together as the lift took her up to Jaime's floor, but the heat still rushed into her cheeks anyway when the lift doors opened and she took in the sight of him, leaning on one shoulder against the door frame, green eyes fixed on her.

It came as a shock every time she saw him again, the realisation of just how _very_ good-looking he was.

As usual, he was wearing a pair of faded jeans—Brienne pulled her gaze sharply upward—and a t-shirt, this one plain and in a deep shade of red. It fitted him well, a little too well for Brienne's comfort, and appeared to be new. She lifted her eyes back to his face before she could let them dwell too long on his well-defined pectorals and biceps. He'd trimmed his beard quite severely since she'd last seen him, to the point where it looked more like carefully cultivated stubble, and he looked… he looked…

_Tired,_ she realised, her health professional's assessing eye belatedly kicking in. Stressed. _In pain_. For all Jaime's good looks, there was no mistaking his drawn features—the pale circles around the eyes, the tension along the line of the jaw—as a sign of anything else. Brienne had seen it too many times to count, even in just the few years since she'd qualified as a physiotherapist.

Part of her quailed at the thought of the effect he must have had on every unsuspecting woman who crossed his path before his injury had wrought these changes in him. If he was shockingly good-looking now, the sight of him at a healthy weight, untroubled by pain and lack of sleep, would have been—she let out a sigh—quite something.

She should stop that right now, the rest of her reminded herself sharply. Jaime was her patient and he needed her. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else _could_ matter.

"Come in," Jaime said, indicating the door with a florid gesture, and stepping back out of the way.

Was he making fun of her? Brienne's face grew even hotter as she followed him inside.

"I'll just sort out the table," she muttered, putting down her bag. She didn't really need to set up her treatment table just yet, but it gave her a reason to focus on something other than Jaime.

It did the trick. When she turned around to face him again a moment or two later, it was with the demeanour of a cool, unruffled health professional—even if a bit of a pink-faced and sweaty one.

She joined Jaime at the kitchen table, and if that demeanour slipped when she took his hand in hers, touched him for the first time since… Well, it was only for a split second, not long enough for anyone but Brienne herself to notice.

"How are you doing today, Jaime?" she asked, as Brienne-the-physiotherapist took over again and she checked the back of his injured hand with careful fingers.

"I'm fine," Jaime said shortly, and Brienne's hand stilled on his as she glanced up at him. He didn't _look_ fine.

"And you did the exercises last night?" she added, when he didn't volunteer any details.

"Yes."

Was Brienne imagining the slightest suggestion of pink that touched his ridiculously high cheekbones then? She must be imagining it, because what on earth could be embarrassing about exercising his fingers?

She went back to checking out his hand. "Could you clench your hand and then unclench your fingers as much as possible?" she asked.

He complied without a word, which wasn't like Jaime at all, but Brienne was pleased to see that his fingers were straightening out a little more, and a little more easily, than they had when she'd first examined them two days ago.

"That's a nice scent," she said in an effort to encourage a bit of general conversation that might lead into a discussion of how he was feeling. "It's jasmine isn't it?"

"Night jasmine," Jaime muttered, and the flush to his cheeks deepened. Brienne hadn't imagined it when she'd thought he was blushing before—though she still had no idea why her every comment seemed to be embarrassing him.

"Is it an air freshener?" she asked. She'd noticed the slight fragrance when they'd first sat down at the kitchen table and had been vaguely wondering about it as she inspected Jaime's hand.

"Hand lotion," Jaime said tersely, and turned his head to look at… the wall on the far side of the room.

Something so floral was an unexpected choice for a man like Jaime, though the scent was subtle and understated. He clearly didn't want to talk about it, for whatever reason, so Brienne decided to try steering the conversation towards what she hoped would be a more productive topic:

"Did you have a busy day after I left yesterday?" she asked.

Jaime snorted derisively, though whether at her or at himself wasn't clear. "Yesterday was busier than most of my days have been recently, which admittedly isn't saying much."

"Oh?" Brienne asked, and then quickly added, "Sorry!" when her thumb pressed into the palm of his hand and she saw him wince.

"My sister came to visit," he explained. It was just a simple statement, but there was a tightness to his tone that Brienne hadn't heard before.

"That's good," she said as casually as she could, her eyes on his hand.

"You've clearly never met my sister if you can say that and keep a straight face."

"Interaction with other people isn't a bad idea." Brienne kept her voice perfectly neutral. "It helps in the healing process."

Jaime laughed then, a hard, mocking sound devoid of humour. "Cersei's never helped anything in her life, except by accident."

Brienne didn't take the bait; she wasn't here to help Jaime try to untangle his personal relationships but just to do what she could in helping with his physical recovery. "Did you do anything last night?"

"Did you?" Jaime shot back.

Heat flooded Brienne's cheeks as the memory of what she'd done alone in bed last night assailed her. "As I said, interaction with other people contributes to your overall recovery." She let go of his hand and sat up very straight in her chair.

"No, actually that isn't quite what you said—but you didn't answer my question."

Brienne bit her lip, hard, forcing herself not to respond with the sort of answer that she longed to give him. She glared at him instead, and he stared right back, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

His mouth…

Brienne stared down at her hands on the table in front of her. Why was he like this? Why was he so provoking and so… so…

"Memorable evening, huh?" Jaime said.

Brienne glanced up, trying for a cool, supercilious look, and missing by a mile. She swallowed. "Not particularly," she said. "I had dinner, and then I spent the rest of the evening studying." _Until I went to bed._

"What, no human interaction? I've heard that that's not a bad idea." He returned her gaze with mocking green eyes, and yet there was a hint of smugness to his expression, too—as if he'd received the answer he wanted. Brienne couldn't imagine what there was in the few words she'd said that would provide that sort of satisfaction.

"Mr Lannister," she said, managing to keep her voice level, at least, even if none of her could be considered remotely cool, "you agreed that you would be civil to me. I'll continue to treat you civilly, as I do all of my patients, and I'd appreciate your returning the courtesy."

Jaime raised his hands in appeasement. "Of course, Ms Tarth. Shall we get on with it?"

"Brienne," Brienne corrected.

" _Jaime_." His eyes were still on her, not appeasing at all.

"All right. Jaime. Let's continue. Show me how you're going with the hand strengthening exercise."

Jaime kept looking at her, and Brienne saw the moment that he came to a decision. He didn't move, didn't blink, and yet his eyes changed. His expression was no longer challenging. He looked like the man she'd reached a level of understanding with yesterday. It was the first time she'd seen that man today, that Jaime had let him be seen.

"Okay," he said, and laid his hand, palm up, on the towel, where he proceeded to demonstrate the exercise.

It wasn't much different from the clenching and unclenching that Brienne had already had him do, so after a moment she told him to try the finger extension exercise. Jaime nodded, and moved on to that one.

This exercise was more challenging than the first, with the finger literally pushing itself beyond its comfort zone with an outwards movement. Partway through, Jaime made a small noise deep in his throat. Brienne glanced up and caught a look of strain on his face, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes now lines of pain.

He needed a distraction. Brienne had already tried casual conversation with Jaime today and that hadn't turned out well. She decided to try honesty this time, and hope that that was enough of a novelty to get his attention.

"Now is the point where I'd usually ask my patient about what they've been doing lately, or about their spouse or children or pets," she began. "I've already asked what you did yesterday, and I'm guessing you don't have any spouses or pets, so would I be right in assuming that you don't have any children, either?"

The corner of Jaime's mouth twitched, and the rest of his face relaxed. "Not even one—child or pet or spouse. You?"

Brienne was usually careful not to share too many personal details with her patients but she knew that most of her colleagues talked about their families in general terms when putting their patients at ease with casual chit-chat. Even Catelyn mentioned her kids in passing, though never by name. Usually, Brienne's lack of family was inferred by her use of "I" rather than "we" when she chatted with her patients about something—most often some sort of sporting activity—that she'd done recently, and they'd always been polite enough not to ask about her personal situation.

Always, until now. Somehow, Brienne was not surprised that Jaime would be the exception in this, as he was in so many ways. But she wasn't going to think about those other ways...

She glanced out the window, looking away from him and out at the ships on the bay as she decided how to reply. But there wasn't much deciding to do. There was no real reason to refuse to answer Jaime's question outright, so… Brienne answered: "No spouse, child or pet. Not even a sibling."

"Lucky you," Jaime said, and made a face.

"Do you think so?" Brienne swallowed, suddenly consumed with the childhood memory of her brother's lifeless body being pulled out of the surf and onto the sand.

Some of her remembered pain and confusion must have shown on her face, because Jaime closed his eyes briefly and let out his breath in a huff. "You lost someone," he said flatly.

"I did," Brienne agreed. "But you weren't to know. It was a long time ago. A _very_ long time ago."

"What I should have said was that you're lucky not to have had _my_ siblings. Well, one of my siblings, anyway."

Brienne nodded. He was referring to the sister who had visited yesterday, that was clear. "How many do you have?" she asked.

"Just the two," he said. "One brother and one sister, which is more than enough, even if my brother isn't so bad."

Brienne nodded again, towards his hand this time. "And this is enough—of the finger extension exercise, I mean."

Jaime's eyes widened a little in surprise and Brienne suppressed a smile. She'd distracted him from the pain, at least for a few moments. Achieving that was worth giving up a little of her personal privacy.

"Show me how you're going with the range of motion exercise," she continued.

Jaime grimaced, but complied. This exercise always caused him the most pain. Brienne watched as he demonstrated with first his index finger and then the longest one, but she glanced up at his face every now and again, and noted the growing tension there. Finally, as he rotated his thumb, Brienne looked up in time to catch him pressing his lips together, tight and bloodless. His chin trembled ever so slightly.

"That's enough for today," Brienne told him. There was pushing a patient towards recovery, and then there was pushing them so much that the pain blotted out everything else—and it was Brienne's job not just to know the difference but to act on that knowledge.

It was a measure of his relief that Jaime didn't try to protest that he was fine to keep going, or make a joke out of it somehow. Instead, he simply nodded, and then asked, right out of the blue: "So what are you studying?"

"Advanced treatment of sporting injuries. An additional qualification," Brienne said, so surprised at the question that she didn't stop to think about whether or not she wanted to answer it.

Jaime tilted his head to one side, regarding her through green eyes set beneath finely arched brows. He already looked better than he had a moment ago, the tension slowly leaving his face and the colour returning to his lips. His hair was a deep gold colour, now that he'd bothered to wash it, though it was still long enough that the ends curled over the collar of his t-shirt, gold against red. One vagrant curl had fallen against the side of his neck, and it drew Brienne's gaze like a magnet. It was small, and almost a perfect circle. _Perfect_ , just like almost all of him still was, even though it was obvious that Jaime felt as if the rest of him was as mutilated as his hand.

And she was just Brienne. Brienne who had never been perfect in any way. Big, ugly Brienne.

"I'm sorry," she said, flushing in turn as she tore her gaze from his neck, aware only that he'd been speaking. "Could you say that again?"

"I _said_ , I suppose that means that I'll have to give up your services once you're qualified—or else find a sport to play and then sprain something."

It shouldn't have been suggestive, and yet there was something about the way he said _something_...

Willing away the colour that she was sure was staining her cheeks, Brienne said, "There's no need to worry about that just yet. I won't finish my course until the end of the year."

"Good to know," Jaime said, somehow investing even those three short words with… _something_.

It made Brienne feel off-balance, hearing the way his deep voice caressed the syllables and knowing that he had to be poking fun at her. Maybe that was what goaded her into asking, "Are you planning on playing a sport, or getting out to do some exercise sometime soon?" She wished the words unsaid before she uttered them, as she watched the smile that had been starting at the corners of Jaime's mouth flatten out into a thin, unhappy line.

"No." The word came out clipped and emphatic.

Brienne wished even more that she hadn't asked that question. Was it possible that he hadn't been mocking her a moment ago? But if he hadn't been mocking her, what possible reason could he have had for sounding like _that_? Regardless, she shouldn't have asked the question so bluntly. She could have predicted how he would react, if she'd stopped to think for even a second before opening her mouth.

There was no point in trying to fix the situation with words; Jaime was regarding her with a stony expression. It was as if a barrier had been thrown up between them, invisible but unbreachable.

Brienne got to her feet. "Come over to the treatment table for your hand massage," she said.

Jaime didn't protest, but he didn't say anything else, either. He simply followed her in silence and hopped up onto the table, arranging himself along the length of it and holding up his right hand without being asked.

Brienne fetched a chair, and then rubbed lotion between her hands to warm it before she sat beside the treatment table, reached for Jaime's injured hand, and began.

She'd touched his hand numerous times already this morning, and yet there was something fundamentally different in her touch now, her goal not to examine or to test, but to provide relief—and a silent apology.

And not just that. Brienne's touch might be strictly professional, but she was all too conscious of the little voice in the corner of her mind that would not be silenced. That voice pointed out that her hands were stroking along _Jaime's_ arm, that that was _his_ skin that her slippery fingers were sliding against, that…

She inhaled sharply, her hands stilling briefly before she let out her breath and somehow picked up the rhythm again, stroking along his forearm and down to the heel of his hand.

Jaime still said nothing. He said nothing as she wrapped her hand around each of his fingers in turn and pulled gently. He said nothing as she massaged both fingers from base to tip in firm, circular movements. He said nothing as she did the same to his thumb, but when she gave the tip a gentle squeeze he expelled his breath in a great, shuddering whoosh—before convulsing into what sounded like a very forced fit of coughing.

Brienne jerked back as Jaime's hand pulled out of hers, flying up to cover his face. When his knees came up off the table, she glanced down—and wished she hadn't. Apparently, his response to her touch wasn't any less today than it had been yesterday.

_It's nothing personal,_ she told herself, trying to ignore the way the heat rushed back into her cheeks. _It's just a simple bodily reaction._

She got up. "Are you all right?" she asked, but Jaime's coughing fit was already done.

"Fine," he replied, his voice only a little breathy as he looked up at her and their eyes met.

Brienne turned away. _Nothing personal!_ she reminded herself fiercely.

"Okay, we'll finish with a back massage," she said as she bent down to her bag to retrieve the bottle of lotion and a round paper cover for the table's face hole. "If you wouldn't mind taking off your shirt?" She was glad she was still facing away from him when she asked that.

"Fine," Jaime said again.

A moment later, Brienne heard a soft thump—Jaime's t-shirt hitting the wall or a chair or something and falling to the ground. She turned around to find him sitting with his legs hanging over the side of the treatment table, his bare chest covered in a light dusting of golden hair. She'd seen his chest only briefly when he'd had his shirt off yesterday, and even then it had been partly obscured by his arm and the t-shirt he'd been holding. Today, the sight of Jaime Lannister, shirtless and turned on and so close that she could reach out and touch him—and not just in a therapeutic way—was not something that Brienne was equipped to deal with. If she was going to have any hope of getting through the rest of this session with her dignity more or less intact, now was the moment that she had to look away from him.

She forced her attention away from Jaime's… from Jaime, and laid the paper cover over the face hole. "If you'd lie facedown, please," she said. Somehow, the words felt different in her mouth when she said them to Jaime than they did when she said them to any other patient. She closed her hand into a fist, silently but achingly aware that various other muscles clenched as well.

Another ten minutes—fifteen, tops—and she'd be out of here. She wished that thought was as much of a relief as it should have been.

Brienne waited while Jaime lowered himself back down onto the treatment table, and checked to make sure that he was lying properly in place. Then she squeezed some lotion into her hand, taking a moment to warm it between her palms, and commenced the massage.

It was both easier and more difficult than that first back massage she'd given Jaime yesterday. Easier, because now she knew his body, the shape of him, his muscles and sinews and how they responded to her touch. More difficult, because she knew his body, the shape of him, and how he responded to her touch. Yesterday she'd found herself wanting to lean down and press a kiss between Jaime's bare shoulder blades—in the exact spot she was looking at right now—and today she still wanted to.

She wasn't going to think about what hadn't happened last night.

Two more days after this, just two days, that was all she had to get through and then her obligation would be at end. Then she could hand over Jaime's case to someone else with… not exactly a clear conscience, but still satisfied in the knowledge that she'd achieved what she'd set out to do for J- for _this patient_.

Brienne stroked her hands along the side of Jaime's spine, starting with his lumbars before making her way up to the trapezius, circling the rotator cuff a couple of times, and continuing up and over the deltoid muscle. It was almost impersonal, almost… academic, when she identified each muscle and muscle group in turn like this.

Jaime shifted slightly beneath her hands, wriggling his delt- his _shoulder_ and letting out a soft sigh—and instantly there was nothing impersonal or remotely academic about any of it. It was all Brienne could do simply to keep going.

_Think of something else,_ she told herself. _Set the rhythm and continue on automatic while you **think of something else**_.

The sight from the family home looking out over Tarth's main beach came to her, and with that another memory: the rhythm of the waves rising suddenly and crashing hard onto the sandbar near the shore, turning into foaming surf that raced up that same beach, draining back into the water just as fast before being drawn back out beyond the sandbar by the implacable current to crest and fall all over again.

Brienne couldn't have said how long she continued moving her hands on Jaime's back. For endless minutes it was just her and the waves, advancing and retreating over and over, lost in their mutual rhythm.

Jaime was the one who brought her back, just as he'd been the one to force her away in the first place. This time, it wasn't a distracting movement but a sound that came from deep in his throat. There were no words involved in that sound, or, if there were, they were tangled up in it so completely that Brienne could make no sense of them. She simply became conscious of Jaime's bare skin beneath her hands, and the way his breath came, slow and steady, matching the rhythm of her hands—and the rhythm of Brienne's own breaths.

She lifted her hands off Jaime abruptly, clenching them into fists to prevent herself from touching him even one second longer.

"That's enough for today," she said, turning away rather blindly, and belatedly looking around for her bag.

It turned out to be right beside her on the floor.

She reached down for her packet of hand wipes. Anything not to look at Jaime's beautiful bare back.

Anything not to look at Jaime at all.

But of course she had no choice. She had to look at him, at least briefly.

When Brienne turned around again, Jaime was standing on the other side of the table. She kept her eyes very carefully on his face, determined not to look any lower, but of course that meant she had to look him in the eyes.

Which was a mistake. He met her gaze and held it and she could see it there in his eyes and _Oh gods_.

Brienne looked past him to the clock on the wall, the one in the shape of a lion's face, mouth wide open and looking ready to devour everything in its path. It wasn't quite eleven-thirty, and yet it felt as if something like a century had passed in less than half an hour.

"I need to get going," she said, as if she were running late for her next appointment.

"Don't let me keep you," Jaime said. The words could have been biting or mocking or… or _anything_ , but they weren't. Instead, Jaime sounded uncharacteristically subdued.

He remained silent as Brienne folded up her treatment table, and led her to the front door, which he opened for her without a word.

"See you tomorrow," he said at last, just as Brienne said, "Until tomorrow, then."

They shared another look, this one awkward and uncertain. Jaime looked away and Brienne turned and walked over to the lift.

This time, she didn't wave after she got into the lift. And Jaime didn't wave back. She was aware of that much, even while she was very determinedly not looking at his face.

She slumped against the side of the lift as soon as the doors closed, and remained that way until the doors opened again when she reached the ground floor. The heat hit her as she stepped out onto the street, but it didn't trouble her the way it had before. She was already so hot that she didn't think she'd ever cool down again.

Brienne must have got back to her car and driven to the clinic, because a little while later she was sitting at her desk in the back office, writing up her notes.

She must have done what she needed to do through the rest of the day, because she saw all of her scheduled patients and none of them complained.

She must have driven home without mishap, because she ended up in her kitchen that evening with a glass of wine in hand.

And she must have got herself ready for bed that night and settled herself beneath the covers, because it was only then that she really came back to herself. She wrapped her arms tight around her chest, fell back against the pillows and:

"GODS!"

What the hell was she going to do?

Her eyes fell on the top drawer of her bedside table. There was one thing she _wasn't_ going to do, couldn't let herself do, no matter how much she needed to get to sleep.

~*~

Brienne was still lying there, wide awake and staring up at nothing, when the first light of dawn touched her bedroom window.


	6. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne discovers that Jaime is not the man she thought he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Firesign, Nire, Samirant and Slipsthrufingers for their feedback on this behemoth of a chapter!

Brienne pushed the side door of the clinic open with her elbow, and backed inside, juggling two large espressos in her hands. It would have been easier if she'd asked the barista for a cardboard drink holder, but she wasn't thinking all that clearly today. She suppressed a yawn as she turned around and walked the short distance to the shared office where her desk waited. Her eyes were sandy from lack of sleep and her head felt heavy, longing to rest on a pillow.

Her head probably should have thought of that last night, instead of spending the time when she should have been sleeping reliving a look she'd exchanged with a patient and wondering what in the seven hells she should do about it.

This morning she didn't have any more of an answer than she'd had last night, plus she had to get through the day on no sleep whatsoever.

It was already a long day and she hadn't even made it to lunchtime yet.

She glanced around as she entered the office, but it proved to be as empty as she'd hoped, thank the gods. All of her colleagues were most likely with patients right now. Normally, that's where Brienne would have been at this time of day, too, but her 10.45 appointment had cancelled at the last minute, so she'd taken the opportunity to nip next door to the coffee shop.

She set the two coffees down on her desk, flopped down in her chair, and finally let the yawn escape. And of course—because that was the way her luck _would_ be running today—she was right in the middle of an ear-splitting yawn when someone entered the room. Brienne saw a flash of long red hair out of the corner of her eye, and for a second she thought it was Catelyn and her heart sank. Catelyn was the last person she wanted to have to look in the eye right now.

Well, the second-last person.

But then the newcomer made her way across the room to Brienne's desk, and she saw that it wasn't Catelyn or any of her professional colleagues. Thank the gods—again.

"Good morning, Sansa," Brienne said, or tried to. A second yawn arrived before the first was fully done, and the sounds that came out of her mouth right then couldn't really be called words at all.

"Late night?" Sansa asked, as if it was at all likely that Brienne would have been out partying hard on any night, let alone mid-week. But Sansa was a student—as well as the boss's daughter—currently working on reception during her summer break, so maybe she was just projecting her own lifestyle onto Brienne.

Not that Brienne would know much about that sort of thing. She'd never partied hard, or much at all, when she herself had been a student. Never, since that time early on in her first year when Renly had come to her rescue.

Brienne shook her head. "No, I just didn't sleep all that well." Or at all. "I had something on my mind."

"Things have been really busy at the clinic this week," Sansa said, perching on the edge of Roslin's desk, which was closest to Brienne's. "I'm sorry if my mum's been giving you all the really difficult patients."

Brienne smiled slightly at the girl's concern for her. "No, it's nothing like that. My patients are all fine."

Sansa smiled back, and then looked down at her hands. She was a nice kid, a little hesitant and shy around Brienne and her coworkers, even after spending several weeks helping out at the clinic. "I'm glad," she said, glancing up and then adding quickly, "I heard Mum had assigned Jaime Lannister to you."

"She did," Brienne said, lifting one of her coffees to her lips and hoping the cup would hide the sudden, violent blush that had probably turned her face into a bright red beacon beneath her many freckles. The liquid was hot and bitter in her mouth, and Brienne was almost positive that she could feel every cell in her body springing to the alert as the caffeine hit her system.

Maybe she'd get through this day more or less in one piece and it wouldn't seem quite so long after all.

"What's he like?" Sansa asked. "I mean, I'm not asking if he's really that good looking—I know pictures usually get touched up before they're posted online—I'm just asking… what he's like, I guess."

Brienne set down her cup on the desk in front of her and regarded Sansa gravely. "I can't gossip about my patients, Sansa. I regard anything that happens during a session as confidential. I'm sure you can understand why." She kept her tone as gentle as possible, trying not to let it sound like a reprimand.

"I understand," Sansa said immediately, but she blushed. Of course, in Sansa's case, blushing meant a delicate flush of pink stealing into her alabaster cheeks—colour that only added to her youthful prettiness. "I wasn't meaning to pry. I just couldn't help wondering what someone like that was like in person."

"I couldn't really tell you the difference even if I wanted to. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Mr Lannister, online or anywhere else. I don't pay much attention to that sort of thing."

Sansa shook her head. "I wasn't talking about what he looks like. I was wondering what it was like to be up close to a murderer. But of course I know I shouldn't-"

"What?" Brienne said, getting to her feet so suddenly that her chair went careering backwards and hit the stationery cupboard with a crash. “What do you mean?”

Sansa had taken several steps back, and now she stared at Brienne, blue eyes wide in a suddenly pale face. She gulped. “I thought you knew.”

“You’re saying that Jaime’s a murderer,” Brienne said, enunciating slowly and carefully, aware of every word, even though they made no sense when she put them together. “How do you know?”

Sansa shrugged helplessly. “I’ve always known. I thought everybody knew.”

“Everybody who? Everybody who works at this clinic?”

“Everybody in Westeros.” Sansa still looked as white as a sheet, and she eyed Brienne warily as she continued, “It was a long time ago, but it was in all the papers. My dad was the one who found them in the athletes’ village at the Valyrian League games in Dorne—Jaime Lannister standing over Aerys Targaryen’s dead body with a sword in his hand.”

Brienne stared at Sansa. She had no idea what expression might be on her face but it was clearly unsettling Sansa—more than unsettling her. She looked ready to turn and run.

“I’m sorry,” Brienne said, keeping her voice low and calm with some effort. “I didn’t mean to shout. You just surprised me. I hadn’t realised that he was _that_ Lannister.”

"Yeah, he is. They called him Kingslayer." Sansa bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Brienne. I just assumed you knew."

"He was never charged with anything, was he?" Brienne asked, racking her brains to remember the details of the case. She'd been in her early teens when the world's attention had been focused on Dorne for the games. She hadn't paid much attention to them at the time. She'd been too busy out playing sport—all the solitary sports that she'd loved—to spend much time staying at home watching other people do it. But the death of the legendary Aerys Targaryen, the coach of the national fencing team, and in such spectacular circumstances, had been such big news that even Brienne had taken some notice of it.

"No, he wasn't ever charged. The Lannisters covered it up somehow, paid people off or threatened them until it went away—that's what my parents have always said. But everyone knew. It was obvious."

"Yes. Obvious," Brienne echoed, and turned abruptly to retrieve her chair.

"I'm really sorry, Brienne," Sansa said again, as Brienne set the chair in place and sat down at her desk.

Brienne took several long sips of coffee. Her hand was steady as she set the cup back on the desk, and her voice was level as she said, "Don't worry about it, Sansa. It's fine. But I have to work on some case notes now, and you're probably needed back at reception, so I'll see you later."

"Okay. See you," Sansa said, but her brow was creased in an unhappy frown as she turned and left the office. It couldn't be helped, though. Sansa had said what she'd said—and now Brienne was in even more desperate need of some time alone than she had been when she'd first arrived back with her coffees.

She flipped the top off the nearest coffee and gulped it down, uncaring that it burnt her tongue. And then she did the only thing she could do: she googled Jaime Lannister.

The top hits were recent, reports about a business takeover by Lanniscorp in the serious news media and gossip about Jaime's love life on the not so serious sites. Brienne clicked on one link and then wished she hadn't: up popped a picture of Jaime with some semi-famous, semi-clad starlet, a dress that seemed to be made out of string and sequins and not much else clinging to her slender figure. Arianne Martell, according to the caption.

Jaime looked much as he did now, all golden good looks—just a slightly healthier weight, and the sardonic smile on his lips was more amused than bitter. The photographer had captured the image just as Jaime had turned, and he stared straight out of the screen at Brienne now, just like he had that first day, when he'd opened the door... and asked if she was a woman.

The camera loved him, that came as absolutely no surprise to Brienne, but if Sansa had still been present, Brienne could have told her that Jaime was definitely better looking in person. There was something about him, a vitality and restlessness—a sense of barely-leashed action—that simply couldn't be captured in a static image.

Brienne hit the back button, and found what she was looking for about halfway down the page of results: _Lannister heir goes into hiding after shock death of 'King' Aerys Targaryen at Dorne games_.

It was all there, everything she was looking for—everything she didn't want to know. Jaime Lannister, the teen fencing sensation and winner of two gold medals at the Valyrian League games in Dorne, found standing over the body of the team coach, fencing legend Aerys Targaryen, lying in a pool of blood.

As soon as she saw the pictures of the much younger Jaime, Brienne knew why she'd never connected her patient with the notorious fencing champion. He'd been remarkably good-looking, that boy. There was no denying that, but he was still not a patch on the man he would grow into. His hair had been a light, almost ash blond rather than the deep gold it was now, and the line of his jaw had been softer, his face smooth and and not yet marked by any sort of life experience. Even as he was led away by uniformed police, he'd looked a little pale, but still cocky with the youthful certainty that nothing could touch him. Blond and bland and pretty—that had been Jaime at nineteen.

Jaime at thirty was far more attractive than any boy. His face was not just aesthetically pleasing but interesting, with the faint lines and grooves here and there that told of a life well-lived, and that look in the depths of his eyes that was half-question and half-promise. It made for a devastating combination. The boy and the man were as different as the moon and the sun, and Brienne would have found it hard to believe they were the same person if not for the familiar pair of green eyes that she saw in every picture.

The article was frustratingly silent on what had happened after Jaime had been interviewed by the Dorne police, so Brienne tried another search, _jaime lannister kingslayer_ this time. That narrowed things down quite a bit, but… none of the articles she found told her much more than that first one. She felt as if she'd hit a brick wall. It was as if the story, the facts, had been erased. There was no mention of Jaime being charged and tried—or of anyone being charged and tried over the death of Aerys Targaryen. All that remained was speculation and rumour—and that nickname, Kingslayer.

It was beginning to look very like Sansa had been right: Jaime had killed Aerys Targaryen, and his rich and powerful family had shielded him from the consequences.

Brienne felt as if she should feel sick, but everything—the room, her desk, _herself_ —seemed somehow so far away that she couldn't feel anything.

The thoughts that had kept her awake all night were nothing compared to this, nothing at all.

She glanced at the clock. It was a little after 11.00am. Jaime was scheduled to be her final house call of the day at 5.30 this afternoon. She would see him then, and she would ask him about it, and get an answer. Either he'd tell the truth, or he'd lie. It didn't really matter. Neither was an answer she wanted to hear.

No, she wouldn't ask him. She was a professional and she'd treat today's session just like any other. She'd get through it, and then she'd say goodbye and walk out the door without asking any intrusive questions.

No, she couldn't just ignore it. She _would_ ask him. She would— She couldn't— She—

Brienne sagged in her chair. After a moment, she made herself sit up straight again and take another sip of coffee.

It was going to be a long day.

~*~

That afternoon, Brienne found a parking space several blocks from Jaime's apartment, but unlike the day before she didn't rush after she got out of her car. For one thing, it wasn't many hours since the day's heat had reached its peak, and getting out of the car and onto the pavement felt a bit like walking into an oven. She had no desire to collapse with heat stroke before she ever reached her destination.

For another thing, this was her last appointment of the day. Brienne usually made a point of being punctual, and not just because things would quickly get out of control, and most likely result in her forfeiting her lunch break, not to mention her afternoon coffee break, if she didn't keep to her schedule throughout the day. But that wasn't an issue once she was on her way to the final appointment for the day, and most particularly when the patient she was seeing never left his home and rarely had any visitors but Brienne herself. What would it matter if she was five minutes—even ten minutes—late? Well, it would matter to Brienne herself, but it would hardly matter to Jaime. He probably wouldn't even notice that she wasn't precisely on time. She-

Brienne stopped walking, so suddenly that the person hurrying along behind her let out a startled curse and dodged around her just in time to prevent a collision. Brienne didn't apologise. She was too busy frowning at the ground.

 _Stop making excuses!_ she told herself. _You **know** why you're running late. You don't want to face him. You don't want to ask the question. You don't want to hear him say it. You don't want him to confirm that you've let your head be turned by someone like… that._

She lifted her head and forced herself to continue walking to the end of the street, where Jaime's apartment complex—and Jaime—waited. Far sooner than she wanted to, she was leaning her treatment table against the wall of the building and pressing the intercom button.

The intercom crackled into life immediately.

" _Brienne! Come on up!_ " said Jaime's voice before Brienne had a chance to say a word, and then the doors to the lobby opened to admit her.

The lift was waiting on the ground floor and its doors opened as soon as she pressed the 'up' button. The lift didn't stop at any of the intervening floors, no matter how much Brienne willed it to. There was to be no last minute reprieve. Long before she wished them to, the doors opened on Jaime's floor and then…

There he was, waiting for her, looking—to Brienne's surprise—much as he had yesterday: all golden and properly groomed and shockingly handsome, and wearing an extremely well-fitting t-shirt, blue this time.

Brienne didn't know why she'd expected him to look different today. It might feel as if the world had shifted on its axis for her since they last saw each other, but nothing had changed for him. He wasn't leaning nonchalantly against the door frame, as he had been yesterday, though. Today he took a step out of his doorway as soon as he saw her, his eyes fever-bright and fixed on her.

She couldn't help wondering what he saw when he looked at her.

"Brienne!" Jaime said. "I thought you were—I wondered—I don't have your number."

"I'm only a few minutes overdue. I would have called if I'd been held up any later. But it's the end of the day, so sometimes I wind up running a little late by now." She listened to the lies tripping off her tongue, and didn't betray her astonishment at the ease with which she delivered them by so much as a flicker of an eyelash.

"Yes, of course." Jaime nodded, and pulled himself back into something more like his usual demeanour with visible effort. "Come in."

Brienne followed him inside. Why was he acting like this? He seemed relieved to see her, and yet still on edge. But of course, she'd already answered her own question: nothing had changed for him. For Jaime, whatever lay between them had not changed since they'd shared that look yesterday, the one that she'd spent the entire night thinking about, the one that said that he _knew_. He felt the connection between them as much as she did, that look had said, so it couldn't be denied like other looks they'd shared.

Except that he couldn't feel it, not really, not for her—for all the reasons that there'd been before, but especially not now that he was _that_ Lannister, the notorious one. He couldn't be Jaime. Not to her. Not any more.

She noticed the slight scent of jasmine in the air again, just like yesterday, as they sat down side by side at the kitchen table as usual. Today, at least, Brienne knew better than to ask about it.

"I'm glad you're all right," Jaime said as he laid his hand palm up on the table for Brienne's inspection. "I was expecting you this morning, like all the other tim-" He gave a sharp intake of breath and his hand jerked back, away from her touch.

"Sorry, Mr Lannister," Brienne said. "Next time I'll warn you about the degree of pressure I'm planning to exert."

"Jaime," he said immediately, because of course he _would_ respond that way. "I thought we agreed that my name's Jaime."

Brienne bit her lip. "I'd prefer the formality, given that ours is a purely professional relationship."

Jaime frowned. "What's that got to do with it? All of my business relationships are on a first name basis. The only person I know who insists on that sort of formality is my father—and believe me, I can't think of anyone less like him than you are."

Brienne wanted to let a smile touch the corners of her lips. She wanted to say that she was glad that she didn't remind him of his father. She wanted-

But it simply didn't matter what she might have wanted to share with the person she'd believed Jaime to be. Jaime wasn't that person. He was…

"Mr Lannister, you are, of course, free to address me in whatever way you wish. I'd prefer to keep things formal on both sides, but obviously that's up to you."

She expected him to leap at the opening she'd given him, and agree that it was most certainly up to him. But he didn't. Instead, he remained silent, and gave her a long, searching look. "What's happened?" he asked at last. "Someone's said something, haven't they? Who was it? Who's spoken to you? My sister, maybe. Was it her?"

"What?" Brienne asked, frowning in turn. "No, I've never even seen your sister, much less spoken to her."

"If not Cersei, then who? And what did they tell you about me that's made you go all stiff and formal and remote?"

Brienne flushed and looked away. She'd been planning to wait until closer to the end of the session to broach the question, even though she'd had no idea how to slip something like that casually into a conversation. But now it appeared that Jaime wasn't going to afford her the luxury of choosing her own timing.

Maybe that was just as well. Maybe it was better to get it over with, and then she could leave and someone else could take over this case. She took a deep breath and made herself meet his eyes. "It was nobody. Not really. I just…" She stopped, and tried again. "All right, it was somebody, but it doesn't matter who they are. They mentioned the Valyrian League games in Dorne. They said people called you Kingslayer."

Jaime stared at her. "But that's old news—ancient news. Everybody knows that, even if they don't ever mention it around me."

"Well, I didn't know," Brienne said. "I remembered someone named Lannister being in all the headlines, and someone dying at those games, but I was just a kid at the time, so I didn't pay much attention to the details."

Jaime smiled a smile as bleak as a northern winter. "So all this week you really have been treating me as just another patient—and now I'm the Kingslayer."

Brienne could have laughed out loud at how entirely wrong he was. He'd never been just another patient to her, now that she looked back on it. Not from the very first day, and as for the second and the night that had followed it...

But that didn't matter now she was aware that people called him the Kingslayer, even if she still didn't know the full story behind it. Even if she still didn't know exactly _why_.

"I googled you," she said, and watched him flinch.

"That's something I never do," he said, his voice almost cool, almost uncaring.

"Don't worry. Most of what I found wasn't that bad. Even the reports about the incident at the games were confusing more than anything."

"Confusing in what way?" His eyes were on hers, not letting her look away.

"It was as if everything just stopped. There were the initial reports about what had happened, and after that you were taken in for questioning. Then you were let go again and… nothing."

He nodded. "Yes. That's how I remember the reports, too."

"But not how you remember the events?" Brienne asked.

Jaime looked at her pityingly. Brienne recognised that look for what it was. She had more experience of being on the receiving end of that sort of look than she cared to admit. She was about to open her mouth and say something that Brienne-the-professional would have regretted, when Jaime finally shook his head.

"You have no idea—about what it's like to be the subject of news reports, or featured in articles in publications and on TV networks that barely make a pretence of being news outlets. Nothing that journalists write about me, not even the supposedly reputable journalists, is _ever_ the same as what I know about myself, or what I remember doing and saying."

"That's probably true," Brienne conceded. "But that's not what happened in this case, is it? Or not _just_ what happened. No journalist knows what happened after the police released you, however much some of them have speculated—but you know."

"Yes, I do," Jaime agreed. He regarded Brienne for a moment, glancing down to her mouth and back, as if assessing—and maybe he was. Brienne didn't know if he found what he was looking for in her face, but it was a relief when he spoke again: "So, you're here to treat me. Are you enough of a professional to do that, regardless of who I am or what you think you know about me?"

"It's my job to provide treatment to anyone who pays for my professional services as a physiotherapist. I treat all of my patients with respect during a session. You'll receive nothing less than that from me."

"Well, then," Jaime said, and Brienne found that she missed the mocking little smile that on any other day would have accompanied those words. "You'd better get started." He held out his hand, palm up and ready.

And so Brienne started.

It should have been straightforward, even easy. This was their fourth session. Brienne knew what to expect, both from Jaime's injured hand and from the man himself. And yet it was nothing like any of the other times she'd touch— treated him.

They didn't talk, for one thing. Nothing more than the occasional instruction from Brienne and an _okay_ in reply from Jaime—when he didn't simply nod. There was no casual conversation, no banter, not even a spiky comment from Jaime designed to goad her.

Just silence.

They made it through the usual exercises, plus a couple of new ones that Brienne was keen for Jaime to add to his repertoire. He followed her example, trying out each without comment, only wincing slightly at the end as his fingers shook with pain and effort.

"Okay, just give me a moment to set up the treatment table," Brienne said as she got up, turning to put her words into action.

"I was charged with manslaughter," Jaime said quietly.

Brienne almost tripped over her own feet. Instinctively, she flung her hand out in front of her, where it somehow found the wall. That was all that prevented her from falling right over and landing on the floor in an undignified heap.

She turned around to stare at Jaime. He looked up at her with a strange expression in his green eyes, that same too-bright gleam in them that she'd seen when he met her at the door, and a familiar little smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"You were charged with manslaughter," she repeated. "And yet it was never reported. Let me guess, you were tried, too, and no one ever reported on that, either?"

"I was tried, too, and no one ever reported on it because the judge put a suppression order on the case and it's never been lifted."

Brienne continued to stare at Jaime. She felt as if her eyes had forgotten how to move. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked through suddenly dry lips.

Jaime shrugged. "Maybe I'm just tired of people making up their mind about me before they even meet me. Maybe I'd like to set the record straight, just this once, with someone who hasn't spent years thinking they know what sort of person I am because of what they've read and heard in the damned media."

"Were you found guilty or not guilty?" Brienne asked, because really, that was the heart of it.

"It's not as simple as-"

"Guilty or not guilty?" Brienne repeated, voice hard.

"Guilty, but-"

She turned, so fast that if she'd been wearing a skirt it would have whirled around her legs. She was only intending to cross the room to set up her treatment table. That way, she wouldn't have to look at Jaime while she pulled herself together and put a lid on her disappointment that that 'Kingslayer' nickname had been justified. That way, she would be able to show a calm, professional face when at last she turned back to confront him.

But she never got further than a single step away from him.

"No, don't go! Brienne, please."

Brienne didn't know why she turned back to face him. Some sixth sense, maybe. Or maybe just that _please_. Whatever the reason, she turned just in time to see Jaime jump to his feet, and then to watch in horror as his eyes rolled back in his head and his legs folded up beneath him.

She caught him as he fell. She never knew how she got to him fast enough, either then or when she looked back on it afterwards. He was heavy, almost too heavy even for someone of her strength and peak fitness, a stupidly good-looking dead weight in her arms. His eyes fluttered after a few endless seconds, and Brienne let out the breath she'd been holding that had felt just as endless.

"Jaime—Mr Lannister—let me help you to sit…" But no, that wouldn't do. He needed to lie flat. Her treatment table wasn't set up. She glanced around and spotted a long, leather couch opposite two matching recliners, partway across the huge, open plan space.

" _Jaime_ ," Jaime slurred, even as he lay slumped in her arms.

"Help me get you to the couch, _Jaime_ ," she said, snaking an arm around his waist and pulling him up against her side. Even in the midst of coming to his aid, she was uncomfortably conscious of the closeness of him—the taut muscles beneath his t-shirt pressed up against her and the warmth of his breath against her neck.

He nodded, took a deep breath as he slung an arm around Brienne's shoulders, and they staggered over to the couch together. She did her best to lower him as gently as she could, but whatever strength Jaime had called on to get himself across the room seemed to have deserted him, and he fell out of her arms and onto the leather seat cushions with a heavy thump.

Brienne wasted no time in lifting his legs up onto the couch, and placing a small pile of throw pillows under them to elevate his feet. His head had fallen back against the broad, well-cushioned arm of the couch, and now Brienne knelt beside him.

"I'm just going to loosen your belt, Jaime, to make your breathing easier and to help you feel a bit more comfortable," she said as she went to work on his belt buckle. "How are you feeling?"

He frowned, as if it was an arduous task to find the words to reply, but eventually he said, "I've felt better, but I've felt worse, too. Not often, but I have." He huffed in a way that might have been intended to be a laugh, and braced a hand against the back of the couch, as if about to sit up.

"Just lie still for a moment," Brienne said, freeing his belt from the buckle and undoing the button of his jeans to reveal the waistband of his underwear.

Black. His underwear was black.

She forced her attention back to Jaime's face. His eyes were open, but not quite focused, and his face had a pale, grey-ish tinge to it. Brienne laid the back of her hand against his forehead, and was relieved to discover that his skin didn't feel overly hot. She reached for his hand—his right hand, the one closest to her—and put two fingers to his wrist. His pulse was a little slower than she liked, but after about ten seconds of counting, she was sure that it was getting stronger, beat by beat, and she let go of his hand and got to her feet.

"I'll get you some water," she said. "When did you last eat?"

Jaime waved a hand, and shut his eyes. "Sometime… I… A while ago."

"Don't move," Brienne told him. "I'll be right back."

Retrieving a glass from the cabinet presented no problems, but when she opened the refrigerator she could only stare at its contents—or lack thereof—in dismay. There was half a bottle of milk in the door, and a few jars of condiments—three different kinds of mustard, she discovered when she took a closer look—huddled against a tub of butter on the top shelf, plus a bottle of ketchup and another of soy sauce further down, and… No, that was all.

"Jaime," Brienne called. "Really, when did you last-"

The doorbell interrupted her.

"Stay where you are. I'll get that," she continued.

"Yes, _domina_ ," Jaime said, or at least that's what Brienne thought she heard him say.

She didn't have time to ask him what he meant, though, as she made her way swiftly to the front door. She wondered who it could be. Jaime had few visitors, apart from Brienne herself. Surely it couldn't be his sister again?

But when she opened the door, instead of the vision of tall—but not too tall—golden female beauty she was more than half-expecting, she found herself looking down at a short, slight young woman wearing a neat uniform, her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail.

"Hello," Brienne said.

The girl frowned at her, but in puzzlement rather than annoyance. "I brought something for Mr Lannister. I know he said to get it by yesterday morning, but my shifts were changed and I haven't been able to get back here until now."

Brienne blinked. The girl was holding out a bottle of Oil of Lys, the lotion she used every time she massaged one of her patients—every time she massaged Jaime.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll make sure that Mr Lannister gets it."

"Thanks. I'm Pia. I work for Harrenhal Housekeeping. We do the cleaning for Mr Lannister," she explained belatedly.

"I guessed it must be something like that," Brienne said.

"Okay, thanks. I'll get going, then," Pia said.

But as the girl turned towards the lift, Brienne called, "Wait! Pia, do you have time to do something for me? For Mr Lannister, actually. It won't take long, and I'll make it worth your while."

"I'm on my way home. I have a few minutes," the girl said, but she eyed Brienne a little warily.

"Just let me get my wallet," Brienne said. She dashed back to the kitchen, and returned just as quickly, stopping only to deposit the bottle of lotion on the kitchen table and ignoring Jaime's demand to know who was at the door along the way. "Pia, I'd be very grateful if you could go down to the cafe next door and buy a sandwich or even a cupcake—anything that they still have available at the end of the day—and bring it back up here to me." Taking a few bills out of the wallet, she held them out to the girl. "I'll pay you an extra twenty gold dragons when you return with the food."

"Sure." Pia nodded and took the money. "I won't be long."

"Thank you," Brienne said, and meant it, before quickly closing the door.

"Who was that?" Jaime asked again, sounding much more like his usual self than he had a minute or two ago.

"It was Pia," Brienne said, on her way back through the apartment to the kitchen, where she at last filled a glass with ice cold water from the dispenser on the refrigerator.

"Who in the name of all the Seven is Pia?" Jaime was still lying flat, but he'd craned his head to look at her, Brienne saw as she returned to him with the glass of water. To her relief, the colour was returning to his face.

"Your housekeeper, or so she said," Brienne replied, setting the glass down on the small, square mahogany table beside the couch.

"My housek— Oh, one of the women from the cleaning service. What did she want?"

"She had a bottle of lotion that she said you'd asked her to get. I left it over there on the table." Brienne nodded towards the kitchen area.

"Oh, _her_ ," Jaime said, and for some reason there was suddenly even more colour in his cheeks. "She was supposed to have delivered that to me yesterday."

"She said her schedule had been altered," Brienne said, pulling a leather-upholstered footstool over and sitting down on it beside Jaime. "Try sitting up—no, take it slowly!—and then have a few sips of water."

For a wonder, Jaime obeyed her, though he muttered, " _Yes, domina,_ " as he did so. Brienne would have held the water glass for him as he sipped, but something about the look in his eyes reminded her a little too much of the lion on his family's coat of arms, and she handed the glass to him instead.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" she asked as she took back the water glass and put it on the table. "It's High Valyrian, isn't it?"

Only a slight widening of his eyes betrayed Jaime's surprise, but he still corrected her. " _Ancient_ High Valyrian, actually. It means 'mistress'."

"I'm not your mistress!" Brienne retorted, and then it was her turn to colour. "I mean: don't call me that. I'm not taking charge of you. I'm just… well, I'm trying to help."

"What should I call you, then? 'Girl' isn't right, or 'woman'." He tilted his head to one side, studying her in a way that made Brienne want to squirm. "'Wench', maybe?"

"Stick to 'Brienne'," she told him.

"Oh, I don't know. I think I like 'wench'." His eyes danced. Brienne didn't know whether to be annoyed at his attack on her dignity, or relieved that he seemed almost back to normal.

" _Brienne_ ," she said firmly—just as firmly as the many times he'd told her to call him Jaime. "So, answer my question from before," she added, before he could try to contradict her. "When was the last time you ate?"

"And if I reply that it's none of your business?" Jaime asked, reaching for the water and peering over the rim of the glass at her as he took another sip.

"Then I'll remind you that a few minutes ago I caught you as you faint-"

"I did not faint!"

"Passed out—briefly!" she added, holding up both hands as he opened his mouth to protest. "Which means that asking when you last had something to eat is a reasonable question."

Jaime rolled his eyes. "Fine. If you really _have_ to know, I skipped lunch. The leftovers from last night weren't very appetising, so I threw them out."

"And what about breakfast?"

"I had coffee."

"So you haven't eaten anything all day?"

"I told you, I had coffee." Jaime folded his arms in front of him.

"When was the last time you ate actual food?" Brienne asked.

"I had a bit of Myrrish takeaway last night. And a glass or two of Arbour Red."

"But you left most of the takeaway for lunch today and then didn't eat it," Brienne said, hazarding a guess that was close to a certainty.

"If you really want to put it that way," Jaime said with a sigh.

"Jaime, when did you last have a full meal that was more solid food than coffee or wine?" Brienne leaned forward, frowning in concern.

"I'm sure it must have been some time recently."

"Do you remember the last time you ate more than a few bites of anything?" she asked, very quietly.

Jaime sighed, but instead of rolling his eyes this time he simply leaned back against the headrest and cast his eyes upward. "I think you've got me there, wench," he told the ceiling.

"Brienne," Brienne corrected automatically.

Jaime sighed again. "I haven't felt hungry," he said, still not looking at her. "The pain… Well. You know."

Brienne nodded, and then, realising that he probably hadn't noticed her response, said, simply, "Yes."

They sat there together for a moment in a silence that wasn't quite companionable, but wasn't really uncomfortable, either, especially given everything that had gone before it. When the doorbell rang, Brienne got up to answer it, still without a word.

Pia was waiting outside the door. She handed over a slightly crumpled paper bag, but when Brienne would have taken a twenty dragon bill from her wallet, Pia shook her head.

"The money you gave me covered everything I bought, with some over. There's no need to pay me any more."

Brienne wanted to insist, but the determined line of Pia's mouth and the way she held herself, ramrod straight with shoulders back, told Brienne that it wouldn't be welcome. The girl had her pride.

"Thank you, Pia," she said.

"No worries," said Pia. "I have to get home."

They exchanged goodbyes, and Brienne shut the door behind her. She went back through to the kitchen and opened up the bag to take a look inside. There was a sandwich with what looked like ham and some sort of cheese on thick, possibly home-baked, bread, and two cupcakes—one chocolate and one covered in bright pink icing.

"Who was that?" Jaime demanded from the couch.

"Pia again," Brienne replied as she scouted around the kitchen in search of a plate.

"What in the Stranger's name was she doing back here?"

"I sent her on a short errand," Brienne said, and then exclaimed, "Ah-ha!" as she found the plates in one of the large, deep drawers adjacent to the dishwasher.

"What aren't you telling me?" Jaime asked, suspicion colouring his every word.

"Stay where you are," Brienne told him, sure without even having to look that he was trying to struggle to his feet, as she deposited the sandwich onto a surprisingly ordinary white plate. "You'll see in just a moment."

" _Brienne_."

Brienne grinned down at the sandwich. He was so irritated that he'd forgotten to call her 'wench'. She picked up the plate and brought it over to the couch.

Jaime eyed it dubiously. "So you'd made up your mind about the answer before you even asked me what I'd eaten recently."

"Eat," Brienne said. "You'll feel better for it."

"Do I have a choice?" Jaime asked.

"No," Brienne said, sitting down on the footstool in front of him.

"I could call security," Jaime pointed out.

"But you won't," Brienne said, pleased to find that she sounded more certain than she felt. "Eat."

"Yes, domin— I mean _wench_."

She just stared at him, hard, and after a moment Jaime picked up the sandwich and took a hesitant bite. He chewed slowly, brows creased a little as if considering something.

Brienne tried very hard not to watch the movements of his throat as he swallowed, and then chased the food down with some water.

"Not bad, as sandwiches go," he admitted as he set the water glass down. "Ham, halloumi, a touch of harissa, and some yoghurt, if I'm not mistaken. I'm somewhat disappointed that they had to resort to the yoghurt, though. You'd think they could have thought of something else beginning with 'h' to balance out the flavours."

Brienne folded her hands in her lap and looked at the sandwich, and then back up at Jaime.

"Yes, yes. I'll have some more," Jaime said and, suiting his actions to his words, lifted the sandwich to his lips and, holding it slightly awkwardly with his left hand, took a large bite out of it.

He made it through half of the sandwich before he set the plate down beside his water glass. "That's enough." He looked over at Brienne, no trace of levity to be seen on his face. "I can't."

"I know," Brienne said, just as solemnly, and reached for the plate. "I'll put the rest away for you to eat later."

He watched but didn't comment as she got up.

She found a roll of cling wrap in the almost empty pantry, and covered the remains of the sandwich with it before putting the plate in the refrigerator. Then she went to find her bag.

Jaime was sitting back against the couch with his eyes closed when Brienne returned.

"Jaime," she said softly as she sat down on the footstool.

He opened his eyes halfway, looking so weary that Brienne felt it in her bones. Of course, that was also because she'd had no sleep last night. She suppressed a yawn.

"Lie down and I'll massage your hand," she continued, taking the bottle of lotion out of her bag. She wondered again about the identical bottle that Pia had delivered. What was that all about? Now wasn't the time to ask about it, though. She rubbed some lotion between her palms, warming it as Jaime lay down, kicking the throw pillows from the end of the couch onto the floor.

Brienne took his right hand in hers, as she ran her left hand slowly up and down his forearm. His arm was tense, so she kept up the gentle, rhythmic movement until she felt the muscles start to relax beneath her touch.

She'd moved on to his hand, and was massaging circles into his palm with her thumb, when Jaime said in a low voice, "I told you I was found guilty, but it wasn't as simple as that makes it sound."

Brienne glanced at his face. To her surprise, his eyes were open, and fixed on her. She nodded, not wanting to break the rhythm. She didn't think there was anything that Jaime could tell her that would restore his standing in her eyes. There was nothing that could turn the clock back and allow her to see him as she had before she'd talked to Sansa this morning.

But she would hear him out.

"Aerys Targaryen…" Jaime began. "They kept a lid on it, the Valyrian games officials and the leadership of the Fencing Association. The bad spells he had, the paranoia and the rages. He was good for business, you understand. A larger than life figure who drew in the crowds."

Brienne nodded again, and turned his hand over, rubbing her thumb in long strokes along the back of it. Even she had heard the rumours that would not be silenced, and had a vague memory of excerpts from the unauthorised biography that portrayed the 'King' in a very different light compared to the official story. 'The Mad King', the author had dubbed him.

"That night I... I'd been training late. I took a detour on the way back to my room to get a bottle of water from the machine in the corridor and… I heard a scream, a woman screaming, that was suddenly cut off. I went to investigate."

 _Of course you did,_ Brienne thought but did not say as she continued massaging the back of his hand. She could picture him as he'd been then, the pale blond-haired younger version of him from the news reports, too sure of himself to even think of going for help, or backup.

"I found them in the team's equipment room, Aerys and Elia, his daughter-in-law. She was on the women's fencing team that year. He had her backed into a corner, a hand over her mouth. She was struggling, but he was much bigger and stronger than she was, even though he was an old man by then."

Brienne had never heard Elia Targaryen's name mentioned in relation to the events of that night. She hadn't seen her name in any of the old news reports she'd read this morning, either. And yet Jaime wasn't lying. Every word he uttered had the air of a burden carried too long, laden with sad, weary truth.

"So you went to her aid?" she said, taking Jaime's longest finger in her hand and gently pulling on it.

"Not immediately. I think I just stood there in shock for a second. I knew the real Aerys was very different from the picture his PR machine took care to paint, but I still couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. And then Elia wrenched his hand off her mouth and screamed that he had a bomb."

Brienne stared at him, her hand stilling. "And did he?"

Jaime nodded. "There was a pipe bomb on the shelf behind him. Elia had come in unexpectedly and caught him with it. They found three more later, in the main stadium."

Brienne became aware that her mouth was hanging open. It took a conscious effort to close it. If those bombs had gone off when the stadium was full of people—athletes, and thousands and thousands of spectators...

"So I grabbed the nearest thing I could use as a weapon. I had some idea of knocking him out, I think. I can still see it, flashes of memory, like snapshots, one after the other." Jaime let out a long breath. "I picked up a sword. Not one of the foils or epees that we used in competition. It was a replica longsword with an ornate handle that Aerys used to carry with him. I shouted at him to let Elia go. Something like that. I don't remember exactly. And he turned."

Jaime frowned down at his hand, which Brienne still held in hers. She wasn't sure if he even saw it.

"I didn't know that the sword was as sharp as a real fighting sword. He turned around and I thrust the sword at him, trying to push him away from Elia and away from that bomb. The blade went into him, so very, very easily, and he fell."

"Jaime," Brienne began, but he waved her silent.

"He looked surprised, more than anything. I really don't think… I don't think he expected to die. In the court case, later, it came out that he'd been raving the night before about turning into a dragon like the one on his family's coat of arms, rising through the flames and leaving ashes behind him." Jaime shook his head, but it seemed to be more agitation than any sort of comment on Aerys's actions. "And then Ned Stark arrived, and found me standing over the dead body, a bloodied sword in my hand." He swallowed. "The judge gave me a suspended sentence—no jail time—but the Targaryen family was as keen for the suppression order as my father was. Their combined pressure convinced the judge, and no one who wasn't in that courtroom has ever heard the full story."

"Not until now," Brienne said. He'd been right when he said that the explanation wasn't as simple as it appeared. Jaime's actions had saved Elia's life, almost certainly, as well as the lives of unknown numbers of people who would have been in the stadium the next day.

And he'd only been nineteen. Still barely more than a kid.

Brienne still didn't see him in the same light as she had before Sansa had dropped her bombsh—before Sansa had told Brienne that Jaime was the notorious member of the Lannister family, but she no longer saw him the same way she had before he'd started speaking—five minutes and half a lifetime ago—either.

She was still holding his hand.

"Jaime," she said again, blinking back a tear. "Thank you for trusting me with this."

"Brienne," he said hoarsely, looking from their joined hands to her face.

He sat up, swiftly, his left arm coming around her as he surged forward and kissed her on the lips.

Part of her wasn't surprised. There was an inevitability about it that she'd been mentally wrestling with all night.

The rest of her froze in shock, but only for a moment before her mouth opened against his and she was kissing him back, her hand letting go of his fingers so that it could slip up under his t-shirt and roam the length of his torso, taking its fill of _touch_.

He groaned against her lips, and pulled her closer, pulled her back onto the couch with him.

A kind of madness seized her then.

She went willingly, her mouth still moving against his, seeking and finding and uncaring of anything but how much she needed to kiss him and keep kissing him, with an intensity that she'd never felt for anyone else.

Brienne wound up lying half on top of him, his long, lean body spread out beneath her. Hers to touch, hers to explore. _Hers_. His hands were all over her, pushing back her top and seeking her bare skin. His hands on her. It was more than she'd dared let herself want. He found her breast, cupped it, and she gasped as one slightly rough fingertip brushed the nipple. She wriggled, trying to manoeuvre herself into a more comfortable position, her hand sliding against his hip and then around so that it lay between them.

His erection was more than just a bulge in his jeans this time. His belt and the button of his jeans were still undone from before. The zipper hadn't withstood the strain.

Brienne wrapped her hand around Jaime's cock, enjoying the feel of the hot, heavy length of it through the thin barrier of his underwear—enjoying even more the way his breath caught in his throat as she gently squeezed the tip.

It jerked against her palm.

"Gods, Brienne," he said, his left hand coming up to cup the side of her face as he pressed a kiss beneath her ear. "Do you know how much I've wanted to do this, to be able to touch you at all? And to have you touch me like this, as _you_ , and not just as my physiotherapist?"

Brienne went still. She felt as if she'd been doused with a bucket of ice cold water.

She was his physiotherapist, and he was her patient. For a few wild, lust-crazed moments she'd let herself blot that reality from her mind.

She turned stricken eyes to his and then scrambled off him and onto her feet. She stood there a moment, looking down at him. He was a sight she wouldn't forget: golden hair tousled from where her fingers had tangled in it, lips kiss-swollen—from _her_ kisses—his jeans halfway down his thighs, hard cock jutting up beneath his black underwear. _Hard_ , because of her.

He was beautiful, half a god fallen to earth, half simply the man she'd come to know. Jaime. She wanted to touch him more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life, and it was like a physical hurt inside her to know that that was something she could never allow herself to have. Never again. Not in any way.

"I can't," she said. "I've got to go." She looked around wildly for her bag, and scooped it up. "I can't," she said again.

And then Brienne fled.


	7. Interlude: Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime comes to a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I felt a bit bad about leaving things on such a cliffhanger yesterday, particularly since it was the anniversary of the first airing of a certain episode. This isn't a full chapter, but just an interlude between chapters that should answer a few questions.
> 
> Thanks to The Usual Suspects.

Jaime lay there on the couch after the front door slammed behind Brienne. He stared up at the ceiling, knowing what had just happened and yet still trying to make sense of it.

"Damn," he said as he sat up.

"Fuck," he said as he tucked himself awkwardly into his jeans and did up the button and belt.

"Damn," he said as he got to his feet.

He shouldn't have reminded her that he was her patient. Hells, he shouldn't have kissed her in the first place. But she'd wanted to kiss him just as much as he'd wanted to kiss her. He'd seen the truth of it in her eyes yesterday, and it was there again today after she'd heard the whole wretched story of the… thing in Dorne.

She'd believed him. She looked at him and saw _him_. How was he supposed to resist that? And then...

He would have had her right there on the couch if he'd only learned to keep his mouth shut.

But if they'd gone that far he didn't think he could have borne the altogether different expression that would have been on Brienne's face afterwards, when reality crashed through and could no longer be ignored. Her look of devastation just now… That had been more than bad enough. Jaime never wanted to see anything close to that on her face again.

He needed to talk to her. He'd probably say all the wrong things and fuck the situation up even more, but he still had to try. He couldn't just leave it like this—but of course he didn't have Brienne's number.

He'd been so relieved to see Brienne when she'd finally arrived. He'd forgotten that they had an afternoon appointment today. When midday had come and gone with no sign of her, he'd thought to actually check the text reminder from the clinic, and discovered that he wouldn't be seeing her until late in the afternoon.

He hadn't felt like eating lunch after that.

It had been such a relief to hear the buzz of the intercom and see her face, even fuzzy and indistinct through the video. He should have got her to put her number in his phone as soon as she stepped into the apartment, but she'd called him 'Mr Lannister' and that had driven every other thought out of his head. He'd known immediately that she'd heard something about him, read something, that had made her retreat behind her wall of formality.

He'd breached that wall, and then some, but he'd still managed to drive her away.

Jaime retrieved his phone from the kitchen table and called the Winterfell clinic. It rang a few times and then there was a click before the call was transferred to voicemail.

Jaime didn't bother leaving a message. Instead, he made another call. This one was answered almost immediately.

"Bronn?" he said.

" _Who else do you think it would be?_ " Bronn replied.

Jaime ignored that. "I need you to find an address for me. Brienne Tarth. She lives down near the waterfront somewhere, in Flea Bottom. She's a physiotherapist, tall and lots of-"

" _I can find her. I don't need to know what she looks like._ "

"Call me as soon as you have the address."

" _No, I was thinking of hanging on to it for a day or two first, just in case._ "

"Bronn," Jaime growled.

" _Of course I'll call you as soon as I have it. Give me ten minutes._ "

"Five," Jaime countered.

" _You'd better stop talking and let me get on with it, then._ " And the call cut out.

Jaime wandered over to the island counter, since he didn't think he was capable of sitting and waiting right now. Not without doing some damage to something—possibly a wall. There was a paper bag sitting there. Frowning, he opened it and discovered two cupcakes inside. Pia must have brought them with the sandwich, he realised. He left them where they were and, as he turned away, discovered that he had the perfect excuse to go knocking on Brienne's door—though whether she let him in was another matter.

Bronn called back, four minutes later. " _11 Fishmonger's Lane, just off Fishmonger's Square,_ " he said, not bothering with any sort of greeting.

"Thanks," Jaime said, and ended the call.

He slipped his phone into his pocket, took the bag of cupcakes from the counter, and picked up Brienne's massage table, which was still right where she'd left it, leaning against the wall.

And then, stopping only to grab his keys from the Asshai porcelain bowl on the hall stand, Jaime Lannister walked out of his front door for the first time in more days than he wanted to count.


	8. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime goes after Brienne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to The Usual Suspects for their help in beating this chapter into submission.

_Turn right into Steel Street, then turn right at Fishmonger's Square,_ the GPS voice said with smug calm.

Jaime swore at it, turned right into Steel Street for the third time in as many minutes, and then swore again as the action sent pain knifing through his injured fingers.

The damned thing had no cause to sound so pleased with itself. Its stubborn belief that Fishmonger's Square and Fishmonger's Lane were the same destination had him driving around in circles in the nightmare of narrow, one-way streets that was Flea Bottom. The only reason he was following the GPS's instructions and turning into Steel Street right now was that there was no other way to go.

"Fuck it!" He veered off the road and into a parking space so suddenly that the car behind him blared its horn even as Jaime let out something close to a growl at another flare of pain.

He hadn't driven since _that_ night. When he'd asked Bronn to find Brienne's address for him, he hadn't thought that driving to her house would present any real problems—but then, he hadn't _thought_ , not about anything except the overpowering need to go after Brienne.

With hindsight, maybe it would have been wise for Jaime to get Bronn to drive him to Brienne's house and drop him off. But 'wise' wasn't a word that anyone had ever used to describe Jaime, and they were hardly going to start now.

He turned off the engine and checked the GPS. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for on the map. There was a short, unmarked street running off Fishmonger's Square. It must be Fishmonger's Lane. It wasn't far. He could easily walk the distance, even with Brienne's massage table under his arm.

Jaime grabbed the bag of cupcakes off the passenger seat and got out of the car. He paused in the act of opening the boot, feeling the breeze against his face as it barrelled down the wind tunnel that was Steel Street. It had been weeks since he'd been out in the fresh air—though to call the air in any part of King's Landing 'fresh' was stretching things a bit—and he realised to his surprise that he'd missed it, all of it: the air, the blue sky above, and maybe the sun's heat most of all. The panoramic windows of his apartment let in plenty of light, along with the enviable view that he'd bought the place for, but it wasn't the same as standing outside with the sun beaming down and nothing, not even the most transparent of glass, between it and your skin.

He set off down the street, walking into the sunshine.

The walk took longer than he expected. He was not quite as fit as he'd been before— _before_ —for one thing, and the massage table was heavy and an awkward shape to carry under his arm, for another. Before he'd made it even halfway there, his left elbow ached almost as much as his injured hand. He had new respect for Brienne carting the thing around with her every day.

_Brienne_.

He'd see her in just a few minutes. He'd say what he had to say. And then… Well, then whatever happened next would be in her hands.

Her hands…

Jaime had to remind himself to breathe—and _not_ think about Brienne's hands at least until he was no longer in a public place.

He stopped at the corner of Steel Street and Fishmonger's Square, sighing with relief as he set the massage table down on its side against the pole and waited for the lights to change. A woman wearing business clothes and three inch heels came up to stand beside him, and glanced down at the table in mild curiosity. He felt her eyes on him a moment later, and had to remind himself that that wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Women always looked at him.

The 'walk' signal turned green, and as Jaime bent down to pick up the table, he caught the woman's eyes on him still, but now they were fixed in horror on the remains of his right hand where it clutched the bag of cakes against his chest. She reddened and hurried off across the road. Jaime stared after her, aware of the world around him but not really seeing it, as the clicking of her heels receded into the distance.

This was why he hadn't left his apartment in weeks. _Other people_. People who would only ever see the scars and the places where his lost fingers were supposed to be. If they saw him at all, they'd forget everything else once they set eyes on his hand.

All but Brienne. She'd never flinched when looking at his maimed hand, or even when she'd touched it. She'd always treated it as just another part of him, neither greater nor lesser than any other. And that was why he had to see her again. That was why it was worth leaving the house, and enduring the horrified looks of strangers. He needed her to see him again. Him, _Jaime_. He needed that even more than he needed to touch her and feel her touch in return, firm and sure and gentle against his skin.

The signal was flashing red when he remembered where he was. He had to dash across the road—as much as he was able to dash with Brienne's massage table under his arm—to beat the traffic. He wished desperately that he hadn't brought the bag of cakes with him and that he could simply jam his right hand into his pocket. He considered ditching the cakes, or holding the top of the bag between his teeth like some sort of dog, but in the end he tucked his fingers between the bag and his t-shirt, and hoped that would be enough to deter further stares. It hurt, holding his hand half-clenched like that, but it was better than the alternative.

He continued along the pavement, aware now of the many people around him, passing him by on their way somewhere or wandering slowly as they browsed the shopfronts facing onto the square. He clutched the bag even tighter against his chest, and told himself he didn't mind the inevitable spike of pain.

_Brienne_ , he reminded himself. Brienne. Just seeing her again, hearing her voice, would make the rest of it worthwhile.

A few minutes later he found Fishmonger's Lane exactly where it was supposed to be, just off Fishmonger's Square. To Jaime's surprise, number eleven, Fishmonger's Lane, was not a house—or not any more. It was a tall, narrow grey stone building, like many in this part of King's Landing, that had been divided into two apartments. There was an '11' in large brass numerals on the dark blue front door—Brienne's front door. A slightly lop-sided '11A' had been handwritten on a sign by the wrought iron front gate, followed by an arrow pointing to the set of very steep, narrow stairs at the side of the house leading to the upper floor.

A medium-sized hatchback with a resident's permit on the dash was parked on the street right outside. It looked like exactly the sort of vehicle that Jaime supposed a physiotherapist still establishing her career would be likely to drive.

She was home.

Jaime manoeuvred the massage table awkwardly through the narrow gate, and marched up the very short path. He set the thing down with no little relief and propped it up against the wall of the house. It only occurred to him to feel nervous after he'd rapped on the door. But no, 'nervous' wasn't quite the right word. 'Apprehensive', maybe.

He couldn't force her even to talk to him. He could only ask, and if she told him to go away instead, well… He would go away.

But surely she wouldn't want to leave things as they were. She'd welcomed his kiss. She'd welcomed _everything_ , and given just as much in return.

She'd left, though. She'd said _I can't_ , and she'd left. Their relationship was supposed to be a professional one between health practitioner and patient. Jaime understood that, but he also knew there was an easy solution to that particular problem, if she'd just hear him out.

He leaned forward, putting his ear to the sidelight, hoping to hear the sounds of movement inside, but there was nothing. He straightened up, and looked around as he waited. The tiny front yard was neatly maintained: hedges trimmed, flowerbeds empty of flowers but also of weeds, grass recently cut—with a pair of scissors, maybe, since it was hardly worth going to the trouble of getting out a lawn mower for the sake of the postage stamp-sized lawn.

There was still no sign of life within. Jaime knocked on the door again. And then he waited some more.

He knocked a few more times and waited another two minutes, according to his watch, but it felt like more. He tried to ignore the sick, sinking feeling in his stomach, though he felt at least as bad as he had when he'd woken up in hospital, drugged up to the eyeballs and minus a couple of fingers.

Jaime knocked one last time, staring at the door and willing it to open. Still nothing. There was really only one possible conclusion he could draw:

Brienne was home, but she wasn't answering the door to him.

He might want—need—to see her, but she didn't want or need to see him. Not right now, and maybe not ever.

He swallowed hard and picked up the massage table, not sure what to do with it, not wanting to give up so quickly— but not certain just what to do next.

"Damn it all!" he muttered as he turned away from the door—and found Brienne standing at the gate, looking back at him. At least, he assumed she was looking at him and not at the massage table or even the door. The summer evening sun was at her back, outlining her form in a halo and obscuring the expression on her face. She looked like a vision of something more than earthly, the Maiden made flesh. No, the Warrior, but a warrior who wielded something other than a sword: a healing hand, and belief in her eyes. Belief in _him_.

The vision faded as Brienne came closer, walking into the shadow cast by the house next door and becoming herself again, all startling blue eyes and pink, freckled cheeks, but Jaime still wasn't entirely sure what the expression on her face meant. The steady gaze that had kept him talking as he'd told his tale to her was gone, but so was the distress that had spurred her to leave him lying on the couch with his jeans halfway down his thighs. What she felt now, seeing him waiting on her doorstep? Jaime couldn't say. He set the massage table back down and let himself simply drink in the sight of her as she came to him.

Several times, as Brienne walked slowly up the path, she opened her mouth as if to say something, but when she finally joined Jaime by the front door, all she said was, "It's good to see that you're getting out and about," as if she were his physiotherapist and nothing more.

"I brought your massage table," Jaime said, because all the other words he might have uttered were suddenly nowhere to be found. Brienne was here, beside him, talking to him, and all he could think of was how grateful he was that she hadn't told him to go.

Not yet.

"Yes," Brienne said, glancing at him and then at the massage table, in a way that made Jaime think… well, he still didn't know what to think. Was she angry that he'd come to her? Regretful that she'd kissed him back? Or was she simply as lost for words right now as he was?

"I knocked," he explained. "You didn't answer."

"That's because I wasn't here," Brienne said, still not quite looking at him.

"Yeah, I… uh, I get that now. I thought that was your car." He nodded at the hatchback.

Brienne shook her head. "No, that's Podrick's car."

"Podrick?" Jaime asked quickly. He'd finagled enough personal details out of her during their conversations over the past few days to be almost positive that Brienne lived alone, and that she wasn't seeing anyone, but…

"He lives in the upstairs flat," Brienne explained. "He parks here. I rent garage space at the end of the street."

"Ah," Jaime said. He looked at her, and she looked back, and then they both looked away. For the first time in his life, maybe, he was all out of words, and perhaps she was too.

"You know," Brienne said, proving him wrong an instant later. "It's funny." There was no amusement in her eyes, though. She sighed. "I've just been knocking on your door. Well, pressing the intercom button."

Hope bloomed and Jaime's heart leapt in his chest, hammering against his ribs, it felt like. "You came back," he said, smiling despite knowing that he had to tread carefully here. He couldn't have stopped the upward curve of his lips right then if his life depended on it.

"Because I'd left my treatment table behind," Brienne said. "I thought you were refusing to answer or let me in." There was no mistaking the expression on her face now. She looked unhappy, even wounded.

Jaime's smile died on his lips. "I'd never do that, Brienne. Not to you. I'd always respond, if I was there."

Brienne nodded. "I… I understand. I'd… I'd answer, too, if I was home when you knocked. I wouldn't pretend I wasn't here until you went away again." Her tone was as earnest as the words themselves, and neither was an act. She was honest and true, like no one else he knew, and she was standing so close that he could just reach out and…

Jaime cleared his throat. "I _have_ just been knocking on your door. What's your answer? Are you going to let me in—or not?" he asked. It was a simple question, and yet it wasn't.

Brienne stared at him, her eyes so very blue, with something in their depths, something painful and sad, that Jaime almost couldn't bear to look at. _Almost_ , because the thought of not looking at her, never seeing her again, was even worse than seeing her unhappy. It wasn't, couldn't be, an option.

"I can't," Brienne said in a harsh whisper, echoing her words to him just before she'd left his apartment. "I can't let you in. Thank you for returning my table, but-"

"Brienne." Jaime didn't want to hear whatever was supposed to come after that 'but'. He wasn't going to let her say it. "Before you say anything else, just let me say this: You're fired."

To his surprise, Brienne let out a huff of laughter, hard and unamused. "Too late," she said. "You can't fire me. I've just been on the phone to Catelyn, arranging to hand over your case to one of my colleagues as of tonight."

Of course she had. He should have expected that. Like Jaime, she'd realised immediately that their professional relationship had to end. But he was getting the distinct impression that that wasn't enough to fix the situation. Not for Brienne. "Either way, I'm not your patient any more," Jaime said, watching her carefully. "So why not invite me in? To talk—that's all."

Brienne closed her eyes, as if searching for the right answer, the right words, but when she opened them again she looked as troubled as before. "It's not as simple as that," she said.

"Then why don't I come inside with you, and you can explain to me just why you think it isn't that simple. You can make some coffee—or even some tea, if you prefer. I brought cakes." He held up the paper bag.

"Thank you so much for letting me know what you'll allow me to do in my own home," Brienne said dryly. Her lips twitched, though, just the tiniest bit. It was enough of a tell for someone who knew what to look for, and Jaime was that someone. He knew then that he'd won—this round, anyway.

"All right," Brienne continued. "You can come in, but just to talk. Nothing else." She flushed. "Not that I expect you to want-" She shook her head impatiently, though it wasn't clear whether she was more annoyed with Jaime or with herself. "Oh, just come in!" She fitted her key to the lock and opened the door without a backward glance.

Jaime followed her inside before she had the chance to change her mind and shut the door in his face.

Brienne's home was not what he'd expected. Not that he'd expected anything really, but if he had, this definitely wouldn't have been it. Jaime had been to a few houses not unlike this one, in the more gentrified parts of Flea Bottom. All of those had been gutted and thoroughly renovated, leaving only the outside shell of the original house, belying the modern interior.

Brienne's home was not in one of the more gentrified parts of Flea Bottom. It was also still mostly in its original state, apart from the staircase running beside the main hallway that must have been sealed off at the top when the house had been converted into two apartments. Instead of one long, open plan space, a number of doors opened onto the hallway, each presumably leading to a different small room. None of the doors was perfectly squared, and Jaime began to wonder if there was a right angle to be found anywhere in the house.

Brienne stopped at a door near the end of the hallway. "The living room's through here," she said and ducked through the low door—too low for someone of her height. Jaime followed, careful to duck in turn.

How did she live somewhere like this without constantly banging her head?

"I'll put the kettle on," Brienne told him, already heading towards a door on the far side of the room that presumably led to the kitchen. "Please sit down." She disappeared through the door—ducking once more—and closed it behind her.

Jaime didn't take a seat. Instead, he looked around, surprised to find himself here—without more of an argument about it first, anyway.

The living room decor wasn't exactly girly, but it also wasn't exactly _not_. Brienne had clearly never heard of minimalism, and the current fashion for stark, white interiors with accents in light-coloured wood had passed her right by. 'Comfort' was the unmistakable theme of this room, from the warm grey of the walls and the old fashioned overstuffed armchair by the fireplace, to the multitude of brightly-coloured throw pillows on the high-backed couch.

Most of the people Jaime knew wouldn't be caught dead living in a less than perfect, unfashionably decorated house. But then, most of them—and one in particular—didn't want to be caught dead in the company of someone with a less than perfect, permanently disfigured hand.

Jaime didn't want any of them, though. Just Brienne.

He glanced back over at the closed door. How long did it take for a kettle to boil? He was halfway across the room by the time he finished asking himself the question, and still didn't have an answer by the time he opened the door.

He remembered to duck just in the nick of time.

Brienne had her back to the door, but she turned around as Jaime came in. She looked out of proportion in the tiny kitchen—not so much that she was too big for it than that it was too small for her. It was even smaller with the two of them in it. So small, that when Brienne moved to the far end of the counter, she was still close enough that he could reach out and touch her—or she could reach out and touch him. Not that that seemed very likely right at this moment.

Neither of them moved, but her eyes were on him, watchful. "I was going to bring the tea in."

"I decided I didn't want to wait," Jaime said, setting the bag of cakes down on the counter beside him. He took a deep breath. It had to be now. No more waiting. "Tell me why you think this situation isn't as straightforward as it should be. The rules are that you can't get involved with a patient, right? Like a doctor. But I'm not your patient any more, so that means the rules don't apply."

Brienne sucked in her lips, her brow creased in an unhappy frown. "It's not just about rules—it's about ethics."

"And your ethics say… what, exactly?" Jaime shrugged.

She shook her head. "Isn't it obvious?"

"No," Jaime said. "I'm afraid you'll have to explain it to me."

"There's the power imbalance, for a start. The possibility of exploitation."

"What, that I might try to buy you, or use my money to coerce you into doing what I want?"

Brienne let out a breath that might have been exasperation. "No," she said, in a very calm voice that did not match the expression on her face, "the possibility that I might exploit the power imbalance that exists between us because of my position—former position—as someone you relied on for care."

"That's ridiculous," Jaime said, because it was. "Anyone who knows you knows that you'd never act like that." Anyone with more integrity than Brienne was hard to imagine. There was no one else with whom he'd even contemplate sharing the truth that he'd confided in her.

"Anyone who knows me wouldn't think I'd ever do what I did this afternoon, either. That can't happen again, Jaime. It can't."

"It won't happen again because you're not my therapist any more," Jaime said, as patiently as he could. Why couldn't she see how easy this was, how simple? "And besides, you didn't start it. I did."

"I didn't stop it. Not until way after I should have."

Jaime took a step forward. "I wish you hadn't," he said softly.

The kettle came to the boil on the counter behind Brienne, the water churning inside before it turned off with a 'ding'.

"I'll get the tea," Brienne said quickly, and reached for the kettle.

He came to stand beside her. Two mugs stood empty on the countertop. She hadn't made any move to even put tea bags in them.

"I know you wouldn't exploit me, Brienne. Do you think I would have told you what happened in Dorne all those years ago if I didn't trust you?"

"Jaime," Brienne began, and set the kettle back down on its base. She sighed. "It's not just about whether or not I would exploit you. It's about the disparity inherent in the relationship between the patient and the therapist. It can be anything from an age gap-"

"I'm, what, five years older than you? Most people wouldn't consider that any sort of age gap, and it's in the wrong direction, anyway."

"An age gap," Brienne continued, as if he hadn't spoken, "or maybe a difference in socio-economic status." She sounded as if she was working her way through a list as she stared down in apparent fascination at the two mugs. "We've already talked about the financial side of things, and yes, that's not an issue in this case, but it doesn't have to be limited to that. It can be things like education level-"

"I hold a Maester's link from the Citadel Business School, so no disparity there," Jaime interrupted.

"Or the patient is in a difficult or abusive relationship, or has a vulnerable family situation," Brienne continued inexorably.

"I don't have an existing relationship, and you don't need to worry about my family situation," Jaime said. _Cersei._ He pushed the thought aside. What Cersei said and what Cersei thought didn't matter any more.

"Or maybe the patient is simply lonely, or alone," Brienne finished. "I don't think you can deny that, at least, can you?"

He was going to do exactly that, deny it until his throat was raw—but he didn't, because he glanced down as he drew in his breath and caught sight of Brienne's right hand clutching the edge of the countertop, white-knuckled.

Jaime covered her hand with his left, and felt it tense so much that it trembled. Their hands had touched countless times since Brienne first started treating him, but this was the first time that he'd taken her hand in his. It felt like some sort of turning point, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.

She hadn't tried to pull her hand away, though.

"Brienne, you're not exploiting me. _I'm_ asking for this," Jaime said, stooping in an effort to look her in the eyes.

"What is _this_ , Jaime?" Brienne asked, and finally she looked at him again, her blue eyes fierce. "What is it that you want? You barely know me."

"I know enough to be sure that I want to get to know you better. I know that we already have something. Don't tell me you didn't feel it."

She stared at him, and for a few very long seconds Jaime was sure she wasn't going to answer, but then she said in a low voice, "Of course I felt it. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have… done what I did after you kissed me. And then we wouldn't be having this conversation at all."

"But you did, and we are," he said.

"I can't believe I'm even saying this to anyone, let alone you"— _And what did **that** mean?_ Jaime wondered—"but I can't start a relationship with you. I can't socialise with you. I can't be seen with you. All of my professional colleagues know I've been treating you. Even Catelyn's daughter knows I've been treating you."

_Well, at least she's left me in no doubt,_ Jaime thought wryly. He'd asked the question, and she'd answered it. Still, it stung to be rejected so comprehensively. Twice in one week, after what his own sister, his twin, had told him only two days ago. Cersei had made it clear that she couldn't be seen with him, though she didn't quite say it. But Jaime heard every unspoken word, loud and clear. She would no more allow herself to be photographed in public with him than she would fail to redecorate her house every year. Everything had to be perfect, and Jaime would never be perfect again.

It hurt, and would have hurt more—would have been unthinkable—if they were still remotely as close as they'd been as children.

And now here was Brienne, saying almost exactly the same thing, just in a different way. But no, Jaime knew as soon as he thought the words that that wasn't true. Brienne wasn't implying that he wasn't good enough to be seen with. She was the only one who'd treated him like a normal person, a real person, ever since the night he'd been attacked.

She didn't want to be seen with him, not because of what other people might think, but because of what other people might do. _If_ they knew.

All right. Jaime could work with that.

"Jaime," Brienne continued when he remained silent. "I'm sorry, but you understand, don't you?"

"What about right here, tonight?" Jaime said.

The hint of a frown returned between Brienne's brows. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've told me you can't risk being seen with me, but what about _not_ being seen with me? No one knows I'm here, and no one has to know. What happens here, tonight, behind closed doors, is nobody's business but ours." He took his hand from hers, but only so that he could reach up and gently stroke her cheek.

Her skin felt warm beneath his touch, and he felt a tremor go through her.

"I shouldn't," she whispered, but her eyes were fixed on his and he could see the truth of her feelings reflected in them.

This time, when he kissed her, there was none of the desperation of their first kiss. It was soft and gentle and not quite hesitant. Brienne made a sound deep in her throat and her hands came up to cup his face, drawing him closer against her as her fingers slid up to tangle in his hair, and then she was kissing him back and it wasn't soft or gentle or hesitant at all. It _was_ desperate, and messy and… yes, it was perfect. Brienne was simply glorious, the whole impossible length of her pressed up against him, and he was hard for her, almost instantly, just like he'd been for days now, every time she did much more than look at him. Jaime clutched Brienne tight, his left hand pushing under the waistband of her leggings, seeking and finding the smooth curve of her arse, and matched her kiss for kiss as he pushed one leg between hers and they rocked together. No one was exploiting anyone, he wanted to tell her—or would have wanted to if his mouth wasn't otherwise occupied on a much more urgent and satisfying task.

Here and now, they were equals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, they didn't QUITE get there in this chapter. Sorry. They just needed a bit more time to end up on the same page. Otoh, the next chapter should live up to the story's rating without any problem. ;)


	9. Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Let's spend the night together  
>  Now I need you more than ever  
> Let's spend the night together now_
> 
> \- The Rolling Stones

It wasn't very practical, trying to get from one room to another while kissing someone the whole time, but Jaime didn't want to take a break, even for as long as it took to get to Brienne's bedroom. He was half-afraid of what might happen if he gave her the opportunity to stop and think. So he kept kissing her, long, demanding kisses designed to distract—and then forgot everything else, even which way they were supposed to be going, when Brienne started making little whimpering sounds deep in her throat that might have turned into moans if either of them had stopped for breath.

They were halfway across the living room, near enough, when Jaime backed into the coffee table. Brienne’s strong arms came around him in an instant, stopping him from falling in an ignominious heap for the second time today.

“Jaime,” Brienne said, her mouth still so close that he could feel her warm breath against his cheek. _So close_ that he could… Jaime’s breath caught and want pulsed through him. His jeans grew impossibly tighter and he wondered if his zipper would survive the distance to the bedroom.

He really didn’t care.

“Jaime,” Brienne said again. “Come with me.” And, taking him by the hand, she led him firmly from the room.

Brienne’s bedroom proved to be the next door along the hallway, on the way back towards the front of the house. Jaime didn’t have time to register more than that the bedroom was as modest in size as every other room in the house, before Brienne was tugging him down beside her on the surprisingly—or perhaps not so surprisingly—large bed.

He was all over her in an instant, no taking his time, no finesse, no _restraint_ , just like some callow youth, a green boy being allowed to touch soft, female flesh for the very first time, instead of the man he was supposed to be. But it was all too, too much: the eager press of her mouth against his, all hot and wet and _Brienne_ , the way her legs tangled with his and drew his cock ever closer against her—damn every stitch of clothing that lay between them— and, most of all, the way her hand stroked up along his side, like and yet totally unlike every touch she'd given him before today. He moaned into her mouth, desperate and clumsy and _needing_ —so when her lips left his and she drew back, tried to wriggle out of his embrace and away from him, he thought, he thought… he _couldn't_ think.

He opened his eyes and found Brienne's looking right back at him. "My arm," she said, and wriggled some more—not to leave him, he realised, or to call a stop to things, but simply to try to find a more comfortable position for the arm that was trapped between them.

She lifted her arm, clearly intending to lay it across the pillow above his head, but Jaime could think of a better use for it. He caught her hand in his and, leaning in to kiss her again, guided it back down between them. "Like this afternoon. _Please_ ," he whispered against her lips. It was selfish, maybe—without a doubt—to ask for this, to all but demand it, almost straight away, and not to take some time making it good for her first. But taking time wasn't an option right now. He was going to go off like a firecracker at any moment, whatever they did, and more than anything he wanted her hand on him—on his cock—as he came.

Just the thought of it had him groaning, hips bucking as he thrust, helpless to resist. Her hand cupped him through his jeans and Jaime let out a shuddering breath: it was almost, _almost_ too much.

He rolled onto his back and was pulling his t-shirt off over his head before he'd completely sat up. He tossed it onto the floor, but it was only when his hands went to his belt that he remembered that he no longer had a full set of fingers.

It was the first time he'd forgotten, truly forgotten all that he'd lost, since the night it had happened.

He pulled awkwardly at the end of the belt with his left hand—and then Brienne was there, her sure fingers at the buckle, and at the button of his jeans. Just like this afternoon, except that now he was fully awake, and fully aware.

Jaime closed his good hand over hers when she would have left him to deal with the zipper of his fly.

"Like this afternoon," he said again. "But let me feel you properly this time."

Brienne's eyes were on his, big and blue and serious. She seemed as calm and in control as always, but she gave herself away with the trembling flutter of her lashes when she glanced down to where their hands met, and when she looked back up her cheeks were tinged with pink.

" _Please_ ," he said, and drew her right hand down, literally below the belt, below everything, until her warm hand wrapped around his aching cock, flesh against flesh at last.

He tried to go slowly, to savour the sensation—he did— but then Brienne slipped her hand loosely along the length of him and he was arching up, straining into her touch, _her_ hand, _Brienne's_. So much better than his own awkward fumblings. He didn't have to think about it, or anything at all, but just push up and back and-

 _Nothing_.

Brienne's hand was abruptly gone from him. Just like this afternoon. The mattress dipped beside him and Jaime's eyes flew open, to be greeted with the view of Brienne's back. He heard the rattle of a drawer opening and closing, and then Brienne was turning around again, with a bottle in her hand. A very familiar white bottle with flowing purple script on the label.

Oil of Lys.

Jaime stared at her.

"I thought, maybe?" Brienne said, holding up the bottle. "Unless you..."

Jaime let out an unsteady breath and nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He watched as Brienne squirted a generous amount of the lotion into her hand and then rubbed it slowly between her palms, just as he'd seen her do every time he closed his eyes and took himself in hand—and even a few times in reality.

She leaned in to kiss him—the first time she'd done that, the first time she'd kissed him at all without him starting it. Her lips were soft and sure against his, an echo of the firm, gentle touch of her hands that she'd used to such effect on his fingers for days now. At any other time Jaime would have-

He groaned as Brienne took his cock in her firm, gentle grip and, still kissing him, stroked her thumb in agonisingly slow, slippery circles up the length of him. He recognised the movement. Of course he did. It was what he'd wanted for days now, what he'd fantasised about every time she'd massaged his thumb, every time he'd dashed into the shower right after she left the apartment, and every night alone in bed.

He groaned again, breaking the kiss and leaning back against the pillows, as she continued stroking at the same tortuous pace. Nothing, it seemed, particularly not anything he could do, was going to distract her from keeping to the rhythm she'd set. She was going to _kill_ him, slowly but surely, if she kept this up—and he was going to let her, because the only thing worse than continuing would be for her to stop.

She circled the tip of his cock and gave it a small, friendly squeeze. Jaime let out a strangled cry, breath catching as his hips bucked, and his hand came down to clamp hard around hers.

" _More_ ," he said hoarsely, in a voice he scarcely recognised as his own, and guided her hand down the length of his cock, and up again. Up and down, back and forth and—"Faster. _Please_."

"Okay," Brienne said, and maybe there was a tiny smile on her lips as she said it, but Jaime's eyes fluttered closed and he lost himself to sensation, faster and faster, slipping and sliding and oh so good, exactly what he'd been longing for for _days_ and never thought he'd get, Brienne's hand moving on his cock, warm and real and _slippery_ against his heated flesh as he thrust. Brienne, Brienne, Brienne. _Don't stop, don't stop, please don't stop, plea-_

And he was gone, eyes squeezed shut against the sheer intensity of it, white hot sensation breaking over him, sweeping through him, taking him over completely, while his fingers clutched the covers and he arched up, cock jerking in Brienne's hand as he spent himself in long, joyous spurts against his belly.

He was still breathing hard, his heart thundering in his ears, when he opened his eyes and found Brienne watching him. He smiled at her, because saying anything right then seemed like more effort than it was worth, and wondered what she saw.

She bit her lip. "I'll get a towel," she said, and was up off the bed and heading towards a door that presumably led to an en suite before either of them could say another word.

Jaime watched her retreating back, the tense set of her shoulders, and wondered whether she was regretting letting him talk her into spending tonight together. He heard the water running in the bathroom, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He pulled off his shoes and socks and rose to his feet, shucking off his jeans and underwear as he went, so he was standing there quite naked when Brienne came back into the room.

She stopped in the doorway, mouth gaping slightly as she glanced down and then swiftly back up to meet his eyes again. Jaime watched in surprise as colour rushed into her face. Was she… shy? He wouldn't have expected it of her. She'd never seemed shy before—just the opposite, when she'd stood up to him and demanded he treat her with respect from almost the moment they met. And given where her hand had been less than five minutes ago, it was a bit late for shyness now.

He grinned at her, and she went even pinker. Deciding to take mercy and give her a momentary reprieve, he glanced down at the towel she was holding and realised that he recognised it, or had at least seen several very like it. It was one of the ones that Brienne used in her work and routinely laid out on the table before she began working on his hand.

He felt the memory of her touch, like the echo of a whisper against his skin, and the sudden answering tightness in the pit of his stomach. He looked her up and down, slowly, mainly just so he wouldn't keep staring at her hands and maybe look too much like the sort of sad, lonely patient with a fixation on his therapist that he most definitely wasn't. Looking at the rest of her wasn't exactly a hardship, though. There were her eyes, of course, such an astonishing blue, reflecting her every emotion. Right now, they were like the sea under a turbulent sky. And there was her pale skin, pink now beneath her freckles, and long, long legs. She was, simply, _Brienne_ , and she was like no other woman he knew.

He let his gaze turn speculative. "I've never slept with a—

"Don't say it," Brienne said quickly. "Don't bring it into this room."

The word hung unsaid between them. They were man and woman tonight. Nothing else. Nothing that belonged in the world beyond the walls of this house.

"I was going to say that I've never slept with a woman who can look me straight in the eyes before." It was the truth, though he could see the doubt clouding her eyes.

She nodded. "And I've never slept with a… a champion swordsman bef—“ She bit her lip, looking stricken. "Oh, I'm sorry. Forget I said that. I didn't put it together until right now. I was so surprised to find out that you were him this morning that I didn't… I didn't think."

Jaime, who had gone still at the mention of "champion", forced a smile onto his lips. "Don't worry about it." He came to her and clasped her face in his hands and kissed her. He was surprised—and more than a little relieved—when she kissed him right back, her hands coming up to rest against his bare chest. He felt the tension seep out of him as her thumb stroked slowly along his clavicle—and her tongue stroked just as slowly into his mouth—and when he drew back from her, the smile he gave her this time was real. "I'm still pretty good with a sword in the right circumstances," he said with a wink, and somehow it didn't hurt to say it.

Her eyebrows rose. He wondered if she was going to take exception to his comment, or at least roll her eyes, but instead all she said was, "Oh, really?" and handed him the towel.

She'd damped one end of it, and Jaime used that to wipe himself clean. He dropped the towel, uncaring of where it fell, and took her hand. "Really." He leaned in to give her a short, hard kiss. "Tell me what you want," he said, trailing tiny butterfly kisses from the corner of her mouth up to her temple.

He felt her sigh rather than heard it, the soft gust of breath against his cheek. "I… I don't…" She paused, stepped back. "This isn't what I expected."

Jaime wasn't sure whether that was bad or good, but he immediately latched on to the important bit: "So you expected something. You've been thinking about this."

If Brienne had been pink before, now she went positively red. "I… Yes. Sort of."

Jaime's lips curved into a slow smile. "Tell me."

She frowned, though just between her brows; it didn't reach her lips. "I'm not going to tell you that. It's private."

"Oh, come on," Jaime said, because he never knew when to leave well enough alone. "I'll tell you what I've been thinking about, every-"

He saw the moment she came to a decision, the flash of _something_ in her eyes, but he didn't have time to wonder about it because she was in his space and kissing him, hands against his shoulders pressing him backwards towards the bed.

Jaime didn't try to stop her.

He felt the side of the bed at the back of his legs a second before they pitched backwards onto the mattress, and let out an _oof_ as all the air left his lungs. Then Brienne was rolling off him, and pulling him with her until he was sprawled half on top of her and her hands were stroking down his back, making him arch into her touch, making him groan, making him want to run his hands over every inch of her in turn—making him wish he were seventeen again, when a refractory period was an almost unknown concept.

"So this is what you want?" he got out, just before her lips found his, and he was kissing her back and silently thanking whatever god it was who'd sent Brienne to him in place of Catelyn Stark.

Brienne squirmed beneath him, making those little noises in the back of her throat that drove every thought from Jaime's mind apart from _yes_ and _now_ and _Brienne_ , until her fingers closed around the wrist of his good hand, tugging at it, drawing it up and resting it against her breast through the thin cotton of her t-shirt.

He tore his lips from hers. "This?" he asked, watching her face as he took her nipple between thumb and forefinger and twisted it, slow and firm and insistent, until Brienne's eyes fluttered shut, and she drew in a sharp breath before letting it out in a shudder. "Or this?" Jaime suggested, pushing up the hem of her top and slipping his hand under, slipping it up along her heated skin, making her shift beneath him, until he found her small, soft breast and his fingers closed over the hard nipple.

Her breath caught again, and then she was gazing up at him, blue eyes dark, as they looked straight back into his. "More," she said in a low voice. Neither of them looked away as he slowly circled her nipple first with a single finger, and then with two. He felt her chest heave beneath him as he watched her eyes close against the sensation, watched her tongue run along her full, pink lips, wetting them, and _gods_ , this time was supposed to be for her, but just the sight of her like this was making his body stir, making his cock twitch and his hips shift restlessly. And he'd still barely touched her.

He never would have wondered if she were a man for even a second if he'd seen her like this from the first—or just if he'd _seen_ her, properly.

Well, he was seeing her properly now, even if it still wasn't anything like as much of her as he wanted.

Brienne laid her hand over her top, stopping his hand in its tracks. "Enough," she said, a trifle breathlessly. She didn't _sound_ like it was enough, but Jaime couldn't stop himself from wondering if she might have changed her mind about it—about all of it. He bit his lip and braced himself to hear her say that it was all a mistake and to request that he leave. "I need to sit up," she said instead.

Jaime blinked, and rolled onto his back, stopping only long enough to disentangle his arm from beneath her top.

Brienne suited her actions to her words, sitting up and… not telling him to go, not saying anything at all. Rather, she pulled her top off over her head, as if she'd read his mind a moment ago, or perhaps she'd just reached the end of her patience, too.

She lay back against the pillows, clearly trying to pretend nonchalance, but she was in no way relaxed. Jaime could see the tension in her shoulders, and in the way she held her muscular arms at her sides, as if just stopping herself from folding them across her chest. Which would have been a shame, since it would have deprived him of the view.

Her breasts were small, which didn't surprise him, and pale as milk, which did: small and white and perfect, and tipped with light brown nipples that jutted out like two hard little pebbles.

Brienne stared fiercely at him, as if daring him to comment.

So of course he commented.

But he leaned up to kiss her first.

"So soft," he said, his left hand at her breast again as he broke the kiss and drew back. "And so white. I wondered how far down the freckles went."

"Sorry to disappoint," Brienne said, though she didn't sound sorry. Just uncertain, unsure, still, of how this was going to play out.

Jaime was going to have to do better.

"Who said I was disappointed?" he asked, arching an eyebrow as he continued to slowly knead her breast. "Tell me what you want. This?" His hand fell away from her breast, but only so he could lower his head and suck the nipple into his mouth.

Brienne made a strangled noise, and then her hand was against his chest, pushing him away. There was a soft smacking sound as Jaime's lips parted ways with Brienne's warm, wet skin.

"No!" she said, and then, softer, "Not yet."

Jaime pushed himself up, a little awkwardly with his left hand taking almost all of his weight, and sat back against the pillows beside her. "So tell me what you _do_ want," he said, and let a tiny smile play around the corners of his mouth.

Brienne regarded him silently, her blue eyes serious; Jaime wondered again what she saw when she looked at him—and whether it was what she was looking for. He sat up a little straighter.

Apparently, she found what she sought, or something close enough, because after another long moment she said, "All right. Lie down."

Jaime's eyebrows rose—he hadn't been expecting that—but he nodded and obediently lay down on his back.

"No, on your front," Brienne added.

Jaime's eyebrows rose even higher, and this time of their own volition—he _really_ hadn't been expecting that—but he rolled over onto his front, resting his chin on his folded arms. He had insisted that she tell him what she wanted, after all.

He wondered what he was getting himself into. It was an oddly vulnerable position to be in, naked and exposed beneath her gaze while unable to see what she would do next. He felt the mattress shift beside him as she moved, heard the thump of what must be her shoes hitting the floor, and braced himself for… he didn't know what.

Still, he started just the tiniest bit when he felt the first, soft touch between his shoulder blades.

Lips, he realised a second later, not hands. A kiss. And then another. And a third.

His breath was coming faster and deeper by the time Brienne pressed the eighth kiss—or was it the ninth? Jaime was finding it harder and harder to focus on counting—against his skin. He shifted, because it was suddenly impossible to stay still, the muscles of his upper back bunching and stretching and... he realised that Brienne's mouth was following a very deliberate path—around his rotator cuff.

Jaime forgot how to breathe for a moment. Was she really…?

Her lips left his back, and Jaime let out his breath on a long sigh. But the mattress shifted again, and then Brienne was straddling him, being careful to hold herself just above his thighs. He felt the brush of her leggings against the curve of his arse and imagined her leaning forward over him, and then the slide of her breasts against his back, skin against skin and ahh, _yes_.

Then her mouth was on his back again, but this time it was joined by the oh-so-familiar touch of her fingers, firm and sure as they stroked their way up from his rotator cuff and over his trapezius to his shoulder.

Yes, she really _was_ doing this.

He could have said something, made some sort of quip, but, like every other time she’d touched his back, he remained silent. And, like every other time she'd touched his back, his cock woke up and took notice.

He felt hot breath against the side of his neck an instant before her mouth was there, warm, wet lips and stroking tongue, and the slight, tantalising scrape of teeth on his skin. He threw back his head, arching his neck like a cat luxuriating in the sun, as Brienne kissed her way along its taut length, and the soft mounds of her breasts rubbed gently against his back. She was stretched out right over him now, her hands braced on either side of his shoulders, while her legs still straddled him below. How she must look, how _they_ must look…

Jaime drew in a sharp breath as his balls tightened against his body and his cock pulsed with want, with _need_ , so when her legs clenched around him a moment later and her hips pushed hard against his, he was helpless to do anything but rock back against her— backwards and then forwards as his cock thrust hard and urgent against the covers.

They found a rhythm almost at once. Jaime didn't know why he was surprised. They'd always been in tune, from the moment Brienne had first taken his hand in hers and unknowingly stroked him into a state of quivering, aching awareness even as she massaged away the pain. Her breath was coming hot and fast against his neck, the broken little noises deep in her throat making his cock grow harder, making everything harder as his every single muscle clenched and silently cried out for more.

He did cry out when her teeth nipped at his shoulder, hard enough to hurt, but all he could think was that it wasn't enough. He needed more. He needed to see her, touch her, _have_ her.

He let out a ragged breath. "Enough," he said, voice rough and raw, as if he'd been talking non-stop for hours instead of remaining absolutely silent for long minutes.

Brienne lifted herself up and off him immediately, so quickly that Jaime wondered if he'd broken the spell. He rolled over onto his back and found her kneeling beside him, skin flushed and pink, watching him with eyes as wild and dark as the ocean during a midnight storm.

"Sorr—“ she began.

"You're going to have to lose the rest of those clothes," Jaime interrupted with a tight little grin, and reached down over the side of the bed to grab his jeans, and the foil he kept there. He fumbled with the catch on his wallet and with the thin, slippery packaging, biting down on a curse as he tore it open at the corner with his teeth.

He glanced up after he'd rolled the condom down over his erection, and found Brienne standing by the bed, quite naked. She looked… impossible. Impossible simply that she could be real, tall and strong but tender and gentle with it, much less here, now, with him. _His_.

And he was hers, just like this time was hers, so he wasn't about to presume. "Tell me what you want," he said.

Brienne smiled, or something close enough to it that he'd call it a smile, and got down on the bed, kneeling beside him. "You," she said, and leaned in to kiss him once, hard, before she straddled him again—again, and yet different in every way from before. The pale blond hair at the apex of her thighs was soft and springy against his cock, while the wet press of her nether lips against his thigh left him in no doubt that she was just as ready for this as he was. But more than anything it was the look on her face, the fact that he could look into her eyes and keep looking, that she was _present_ , that they were in this together, in every single way.

Her eyes were on him as she lifted herself up onto her knees, shifting to one side as she centred herself and slowly, slowly, _slowly_ lowered herself onto his cock. And yes, gods, she was definitely ready, so wet that he slipped in easily—even easier than all those times his cock had slipped back and forth in his hand as he'd let himself imagine what this moment might be like.

The reality was better. So, so much better. The way her eyelids fell shut and she sighed as her inner muscles fluttered and clenched hard around him, so hard that he couldn't stop himself from arching his hips, couldn't resist pushing up and into her, all the rest of the way—and once he started, he didn't want to stop.

But then Brienne's eyes opened, coming back to him from some private world of her own, and she started moving, riding him, meeting him thrust for thrust.

She didn't want to stop either.

Just the thought of that, the sight of her, had Jaime biting his lip as his fingers clutched at her hips and his toes curled into the mattress. It was almost enough to push him to the edge, when he shouldn't have been anywhere near it. Not so soon again.

But Brienne was even closer. Her breath was coming fast and deep now, her knees on either side of him gripping him tighter, _everything_ gripping him tighter, so when she let out a deep, impatient whimper, Jaime knew what he had to do. He was glad of all the practice he'd had using his left hand this week as he slipped it up over her thigh and between her legs, fingers seeking and finding and circling, eyes on her face as her whimpers grew short and sharp and broken, watching as his thumb pressed down on her clit once, twice and-

Her breath caught as she convulsed, eyes squeezed shut as she threw back her head, caught up in sensation, abandoned in the moment, revealing her secret self to him because there was no hiding now. A cry broke free from her, long and loud and low, and Jaime couldn't take his eyes off her, didn't want to, wished this moment could keep going until they were at least halfway to forever.

Who cared about refractory periods when he got to see this? Was this what people had in mind when they said it was better to give than to receive? That had never held much appeal for Jaime—until now.

But of course it did eventually end—though who was he to say that they weren't halfway to some sort of forever by then? Brienne relaxed all of a sudden, slumping down on him, replete, and captured his lips in a long, unhurried kiss. She was smiling as she lifted her head, regarding him with sleepy, shining eyes, the brightest smile by far he'd ever seen on her face. It was the most beautiful sight he'd seen in... he didn't know when, and he felt the brilliance of it—of _her_ —warming him right down deep in his bones, so deep in the core of him that it was the most natural thing in the world to roll with it, to roll his hips, to thrust up and into her once, twice, and to let the heat consume him too.

Jaime had no idea how much time passed as he floated afterwards in dreamy languor, but the evening sun was still peeping in around the edges of the blind when he opened his eyes. Brienne rolled off him and he slipped from her, feeling the loss of connection, the loss of her, even as he rolled over to face her.

But of course she hadn't gone anywhere. She was still right here beside him. He could reach out and touch her if he wanted—so he did, his good hand stroking slowly up and down her arm. He didn't possess her expertise, of course, but he was fairly sure that he made up for a lot in enthusiasm. He smiled at her, without really meaning to, just smiling because he wanted to with no calculation in it, and she smiled back, just as unguarded. They probably looked like a couple of lovestruck—or at least fuckstruck—idiots.

Jaime couldn't bring himself to care.

He reached down to slip off the condom. "Stay there," he told Brienne. "Don't move. I'll be right back."

"Okay," Brienne said, still smiling gently.

Jaime didn't move. In fact, he had to stay there and look at her for several more long moments just because he didn't want to miss any of that smile. Eventually, he forced himself to sit up, tying off the condom and then looking around for a bin.

"Bathroom," Brienne murmured beside him.

Jaime nodded and got up. He tossed the condom into the small bin by the bathroom vanity, and used the toilet while he was there.

He wondered how Brienne would feel about sharing a meal—and maybe some more kisses, if nothing else—but when he made it back to the bed he found that both questions were academic, at least for the moment. Brienne was stretched out on her side, eyes closed, head pillowed on one hand, her breathing deep and even.

She was fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the chapter count has gone up again because, as you've probably realised by now, I am invariably wrong at estimating how long my own fic will be.
> 
> The second half of their night together will be, er, coming in the next chapter.


	10. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken a while. I've been unwell. With luck, the final two chapters will arrive much quicker.

_Ahhh_.

Brienne snuggled deeper into the pillow. She didn't want to get up. She was safe and warm and oh-so-comfortable in bed, but something was nuzzling against her neck. It must be Durran, her father's majestic old tabby cat. He liked to burrow beneath the covers with her on cool mornings when she was back at home. A couple of whiskers brushed her cheek. The cat would probably start purr-

"Brienne," a voice rumbled against the hollow below her ear, and Brienne's eyes flew open.

An arm came around her from behind and a warm, naked male body pressed up against her—and memory came flooding back.

"What time is it?" she asked, but the only answer she received was a kiss on the underside of her jaw that made her arch her neck, made her stretch her shoulders and lean back against Jaime Lannister's bare chest.

It shouldn't have been real: Jaime Lannister's bare chest—Jaime Lannister's bare everything—here, now, in her bed. With her. His hand cupped her breast, squeezing gently, and… Yes, there was no denying that that was very, very real. Brienne closed her eyes on a long sigh.

"No, really, what time is it?" she asked after several more deep sighs, forcing her eyes open. She glanced over at the window. Weak sunlight from outside illuminated the blind. It wasn't fully dark, but it couldn't be morning. She didn't feel as if she'd had a full night's sleep, but more like a nap that had taken the edge off the day's extreme fatigue. So it must still be evening, then.

"Dinner time, almost," Jaime murmured, his stubble scraping lightly against her skin as he pressed another kiss along her jawline. "It'll be here soon."

" _What_ will be here soon?" Brienne wriggled out of his embrace and rolled onto her back.

Jaime pushed himself up on one elbow. "Dinner. When I placed the order they said it would be here"—he grabbed the phone sitting on Brienne's bedside table and tapped it, checking the time—"any moment now."

Brienne blinked. She wanted to object, or at least she wanted to have the energy to want to object—but she didn't, so she contented herself by asking mildly, "How do you know whether I'll like what you've chosen?"

Jaime smiled, looking pleased with himself. "I've ordered a selection. But if you don't like any of it, tell me what you want and I'll get them to deliver that as well."

"Maybe it would have been easier to just ask me in the first place," she pointed out.

Jaime didn't reply immediately. Instead, he reached out to her. She thought he was going to cup her face in his hand, as he'd done earlier when he kissed her. This time, though, he stroked two fingertips slowly and softly along her temple. It was the simplest of gestures, but shockingly intimate. When Brienne had imagined this—the two of them together— she'd never imagined _this_.

"You looked like you needed the sleep," he said, very quietly.

Brienne blinked again— _hard_ —but not in surprise this time. _Consideration_ , from Jaime Lannister of all people.

She leaned up and kissed him, because that was something she could do tonight, if she chose, and he kissed her back, slow and deliberate and-

The doorbell rang.

Jaime broke the kiss. "That'll be dinner," he said, sitting up properly. "I'll get it," he added, as Brienne looked around for her clothes. He reached over the side of the bed for his jeans and pulled them on. Still shirtless, he padded barefoot from the room. Brienne heard the front door open and then the low murmur of voices.

She'd pulled her leggings back on and was reaching for her t-shirt when Jaime returned to the bedroom carrying no less than half a dozen plastic bags, each one packed with several rectangular takeaway food containers.

Brienne's eyes went wide. "What…?" she asked.

"Dinner," Jaime said with a too-charming grin. "I told you I ordered a selection."

"Jaime, there's enough here for… I don't know, a dozen people?" Brienne said incredulously.

He shrugged. "Maybe. There should be a few dishes from each of the nine Free Cities in these. Well, eight of them. You don't want to bother with Lorathi so-called cuisine. Believe me," he said with a theatrical shudder.

"I'll take your word for it." Brienne had never tried Lorathi food, and she was unlikely to need to seek out it or anything else to eat for some days to come. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had so much cooked food in the house at once. Probably never. Regardless, they were going to need plates and bowls, and knives and forks and spoons, if they were going to get through even a little bit of Jaime's culinary largesse tonight. She reached for her top again.

"Don't!" Jaime said quickly.

Brienne looked up at him in surprise. "Don't what?"

"Don't put the t-shirt back on."

Brienne raised her eyebrows, trying for a cool look while willing herself not to blush. "I'd rather not risk hot sauce dripping on my bare skin, if it's all the same."

"I don't mean that you shouldn't wear anything—though obviously I wouldn't object if you did."

 _Obviously?_ Brienne felt the heat creeping up her neck to her face.

Jaime set the plastic bags on the chair in the corner of the room and pushed open the sliding door on her built-in wardrobe. Brienne watched, speechless, as he dug through the hangers and pulled out a crisp, white button-down shirt.

"I wish I'd thought to change into a business shirt before I came here tonight, so that I could look at you wearing it while we eat," he told her with apparent sincerity as he held it out to her. "But this will have to do for now. Leave it unbuttoned. _Please_."

 _Please_. Brienne remembered the last time he'd said 'please'. _Please don't stop_ , he'd said, over and over, a litany she'd never forget. And then the expression on his face a moment later, all the sharp, beautiful lines of his classically handsome features contorted into something she'd imagined but never expected to see. The expression that her actions had caused to be there. She hadn't been able to look away.

Brienne was suddenly breathless, as though there was no cool air left in the room.

"All right," she said. She took the shirt from him and put it on. It felt strange to leave it hanging open, but somehow she didn't feel as self-conscious as she expected to. But then, what was a bit of bare skin after the baring of self that they'd already shared?

Jaime opened the wardrobe door a bit further as he pushed some of the hanging garments out of the way to return the hanger to its rail—and stopped. He bent down.

Brienne didn't even try to stop herself from watching the view. Tonight she got to look at him, to drink in the sight of him, as much as she wanted—and that included his arse in skin tight jeans as he bent down to…

He stood up, and Brienne just stopped herself from letting out a sigh.

"Wear these too," Jaime said as he straightened up. He turned to face her, brandishing her boots. Not the ankle boots that she wore to work sometimes in winter. Oh, no. Her _other_ boots, the knee-high ones with the impractically high heels.

Of course it had to be those, didn't it?

She shook her head. "No."

"Why not?" Jaime asked, because of course he couldn't just accept a 'no' when he wanted something.

"Because it's summer. I'll overheat if I wear those on my feet."

Jaime raised an eyebrow.

" _Not_ in a good way," Brienne clarified. "They're for winter."

Jaime looked at her, considering, for a moment. Brienne had to stop herself from squirming under that look. It was a relief when he returned the boots to the bottom of the wardrobe and said, "All right, then. Winter." Or, at least, it should have been a relief.

"Let's bring the food through to the kitchen," she said, getting to her feet.

Jaime's eyes followed her as she moved, his gaze dipping briefly down to her chest, even though it was half-hidden by the folds of her shirt and nothing much to speak of even when completely uncovered. He'd already seen it, already seen everything she had, every inch of her. Brienne really didn't understand why he'd want to _keep_ looking—Hy- no one else had ever shown any interest in doing so when they'd had the opportunity—but she also couldn't deny that he did.

She resisted the urge to button her shirt.

"I've got a better idea," Jaime said, looking her in the eyes as he spoke.

 _I've never slept with a woman who can look me straight in the eyes before._ That's what he'd said, earlier tonight. So Brienne looked into green eyes, a warmer green than she'd ever seen there. "Yes?" she said.

"Why don't we go and get what we need from the kitchen and eat in here."

Brienne could think of at least three reasons off the top of her head why that wasn't a better idea but somehow, "Okay," was what she said—and Jaime smiled at her in a way that warmed her from the top of her head down to the soles of her feet.

She was still feeling it—warm, but not embarrassed—five minutes later when they were sitting side by side on the bed and unpacking the plastic containers onto a couple of trays. Maybe Jaime had had dinner in bed before—with company, even—but Brienne was willing to bet that he'd never eaten anything off a bright green plastic tray in his life.

She reached for the fourth plastic bag, and only realised then that the rectangular objects inside it were not food containers but something smaller. The bag contained packets of condoms. Lots of them.

"I see you didn't just order a selection of food," she said, holding up one packet while desperately trying to keep her tone dry and willing herself not to blush. The packet was even greener than the tray, and claimed that the condom inside glowed in the dark.

"Yes," Jaime said, still unpacking the contents of one of the other plastic bags. "I got the delivery guy to pick some of those up on the way. I didn't think one more stop would present a problem." Of course he didn't blush—damn him—and his tone was as blasé as if he were discussing whether they might get some rain sometime soon.

The curve of his lips gave him away a second before he looked up—and looked at her with a mischievous smile, not blasé at all. "I only had the one in my wallet—foolishly unprepared of me, I know—and you didn't have any on hand that I could find, so it seemed like the best idea." Most of the mischief left his eyes then, as they flared with sudden heat, and his hand was on her thigh, thumb rubbing back and forth, insistent. "We still have the rest of the night."

Brienne had no idea who started the kiss, but it didn't really matter. It didn't matter at all. She closed her eyes and let it happen, running her hands over his bare back even as her mouth moved against his, enjoying the warmth of his skin, the shape of him beneath her hands, seeing him with touch in a way she never let herself when… Well, at any time other than tonight.

"What?" Jaime said against her lips.

"Nothing," Brienne said, but she pulled away, back to her side of the bed. "We should eat, since you've ordered all this food."

"Yes," Jaime agreed, but he was watching her carefully now, a question in his eyes that she pretended not to notice.

Brienne picked up the nearest container of food and opened it. She had no idea what it was, and still had no clue, beyond the fact that it was some sort of seafood, after she tasted the first mouthful. She could have asked Jaime—presumably he was familiar with all the dishes he'd ordered—but she didn't really care enough to bother.

Turning to Jaime, she discovered that he was still watching her.

She glanced down at the empty plate in front of him and raised her eyebrows. "If you want to keep going the rest of the night, you're going to need more to eat than half a sandwich, hours ago."

He raised his eyebrows right back at her, but not in affront, not as if she'd impugned his masculinity or something. His lips twitched in what could only be amusement.

"How much have you eaten today, Brienne?" he enquired, oh-so-casually. He still didn't make any move to eat, though.

"Not enough," she said, raising another forkful to her mouth, silently daring him, and utterly refusing to blush. She watched as he opened one of the containers, and a tantalising aroma, sweet and spicy, hit her nostrils. It was some sort of one-pot dish by the look of it, containing an array of vegetables, and red meat that had probably never been near an ocean.

Brienne watched as Jaime served himself a generous helping, and almost opened her mouth to suggest that they share, or perhaps swap. But then his hand slid back over her thigh and lingered there just long enough to banish all other thoughts from Brienne's mind. Her eyes closed on a sigh and… the hand was gone again.

She opened her eyes to see Jaime lifting his fork to his lips. It wobbled a little on the way, his left hand still not as dextrous as it needed to be, but Jaime ignored it. His eyes were fixed on hers and he continued to watch her as he chewed, slowly and deliberately.

Brienne watched right back, watched the slight pout of his lower lip as his mouth moved, and thought of… well, she didn't think of food. With some little effort, she picked up her fork again. His eyes dropped to her lips, and stayed there until she swallowed down the mouthful of seafood. He swallowed too— _hard_ —and looked away, but only for the time it took to scoop up more of the red meat on his fork, and then to chew, slowly and with _intent_.

Brienne swallowed again, though she hadn't yet eaten another bite.

They continued like that, half competition, half tease, for some unknown length of time, but Brienne was still only about halfway through her dish when a drop of the salty sauce caught at the corner of her mouth. If she had been alone, as she usually was while eating dinner at home, she would have wiped the sauce away with hardly a conscious thought. But right now she was very, very conscious as she lifted her hand, touched her finger to the speck of sauce at her mouth, and then slowly drew her finger along her bottom lip. She wondered if she was doing this right, or if it might be a step too far beyond their mutual daring of each other. Maybe she didn't look teasing but just… silly.

She glanced at Jaime and found that she had his avid attention. He blinked, once, slow and almost sleepy, and gazed at her through thick, golden lashes. His breath was coming faster, though, his chest rising and falling with a rapidity that wasn't sleepy at all.

Brienne slipped the tip of her finger into her mouth and sucked, before pulling it free again with a soft _pop_. It left her lips a little moist, and probably shiny, in a slight, suggestive pucker.

Jaime set down his fork and said in a voice that only broke a very little, "Let me taste?"

Not even Brienne at her least self-confident—which she definitely wasn't right now—could have mistaken that as a request involving some sort of shared plate arrangement. His hand came up to rest on the headboard beside her, as if he intended to lean in and push her back against the pillows, but she met him halfway, met his lips with a little sigh of relief. She tasted the sweetness of honey and the heat of peppers in his mouth, but the kiss itself was sweeter and hotter than either: because it was Jaime kissing her and—Brienne let herself fully believe it at last—because it was her kissing him.

Her world contracted to the kiss, to his mouth and hers, and there was nothing but the feel and taste of Jaime, and the constant tug of the need for more, as a single kiss became two kisses, then three.

After a little while—or maybe a long while—she became hazily aware of her hand clasped on his warm, bare shoulder and the way the muscles flexed beneath her fingers as his hand slipped beneath her unbuttoned shirt, questing unerringly for her breast. Her breath caught, her mouth stilling on his as his hand found her breast, cupped it. Her nipple rose and hardened as his thumb circled, coaxing little spikes of pleasure from her, and she whimpered against his lips despite herself. It was hardly a secret that he wasn't the only one who liked it when he paid attention to her breasts, and yet somehow she begrudged her tacit admission of it. She didn't want to be a completely open book to him.

With a low groan, Jaime ended the kiss and bent to suck her nipple into his mouth—and the shuddering cry that broke from her lips then left neither of them in any doubt about how much she welcomed his every touch. Brienne arched into this new sort of kiss, sharp, sweet sensation dancing and leaping along her skin with each slow slide of his lips and tongue, the sudden scrape of stubble against her heated flesh making her gasp as she strained back against the pillows.

Jaime lifted his head just far enough to speak, his breath hot against her damp skin as he murmured, "You said 'not yet' when I tried this before. Is it _yet_ now?"

Surely he already knew what her answer was. Brienne didn't bother with words, but simply reached out and took his head in her hands, drawing him back to her breast.

Jaime didn't need telling twice. His mouth was immediately hot and wet against her, kissing and sucking and licking and even nipping—gently, teasingly—as Brienne lay back and let herself _not_ think, let herself simply exist in one long, glorious unguarded moment when all she had to do was enjoy.

It didn't last. The sudden clank of cutlery cut through the haze of pleasure, and then Jaime's mouth was gone from her. She opened her eyes to find him already on his feet, reaching for one of the trays.

"We're going to need more space," he said, and somehow the look he turned on her then invested the prosaic observation with a level of heat and promise that it in no way deserved, and sent a little shiver through Brienne.

She stretched, half-languid, half… not at all languid, and let Jaime clear the bed of everything but herself. Any other day, any other _time_ , she would have been jumping up to see to things herself but… not right now. Trays, containers and plastic bags ended up in a jumble on the old armchair in the corner, and Brienne simply did not care. Jaime had stopped on the way back across the room to shuck off his jeans, and he had all her attention. A week ago, a day ago, a couple of hours ago— _less_ —Brienne would have blushed and looked away. But not now. She'd left that part of herself behind, discarded like a garment she no longer needed. Maybe she'd put it back on again at some point but… not right now. She watched as naked he returned to her, all broad shoulders and golden skin and _ready_. His lips curved into a wicked smile that made her shiver all over again as he watched her watch him.

He stopped by the bed. "You're slightly overdressed for what I have in mind," he said.

Brienne raised an eyebrow. "I thought you preferred me in this shirt?" She lifted the side with the buttons, which incidentally provided him with an unimpeded view of what lay beneath.

The sudden flare of his pupils and the expression in his eyes were at odds with his light, teasing tone as he quipped: "Depends on what my other options are." He got back on the bed and then he was leaning down to press a kiss just above her belly button. "Take off the shirt, while I…"

Any other words he might have said were muffled as his mouth moved lower, over the top of her leggings. Her underwear had ended up the gods knew where, earlier, and she hadn't bothered with another pair when she'd pulled her leggings back on, so they were all that lay between Jaime's mouth and… her. He drew in a deep breath. She could feel it as he let it out again, a gust of heat through the thin fabric.

"Gods, I could just lie here and breathe you in for hours," he said. "But not like this." And before Brienne had time to wonder what he was getting at, he caught the waistband of her leggings between his teeth and pulled.

She let out a surprised little laugh, and then lowered her hands to help him, wriggling and shoving until Jaime tossed the leggings over his shoulder and they sailed off across the room—probably to join her missing knickers. Then he was back while she was still shrugging out of her shirt, kneeling between her legs, leaning down, his mouth following the line of her hip and over the top of her thigh. He paused, jaw brushing against her inner thigh as his breath touched the triangle of hair there, tickling her sensitive skin and awakening the hot, slick places beneath. Brienne's inner muscles clenched with the memory of a different sort of touch.

Jaime pressed a kiss to her clit, and more than just her inner muscles clenched then, but his mouth was already gone from her, he was already moving away, leaving her in an agony of anticipation.

"Don't stop," Brienne breathed, and even those two simple words were laden with meaning beyond the here and now. _Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop!_ The memory of Jaime, spread out before her, all beautiful and desperate and _male_ , begging her not to stop as she stroked him to completion, was not something Brienne would soon forget. Soon, or ever. Just the thought of it made her tremble. To be wanted like that. To _want_ like that...

"I was getting ahead of myself," Jaime said, and then he was leaning in again. Brienne could hear the smile in his voice as he added, "Patience," a moment before his mouth closed over her nipple.

What followed was...Words like _feasting_ and _plundering_ flitted through Brienne's mind, but _devastating_ came nearer to the mark, she decided hazily, some indeterminate length of time later. She was a scene of devastation, not just willing but complicit in her own ruin, and she didn't regret it in the slightest. Still, she was shifting restlessly, impatient now, and even whimpering a little, by the time Jaime's mouth at last arrived back between her legs.

The first long swipe of his tongue was like nothing she'd ever felt before, quite literally. No one had ever done this to her until now. Admittedly, there hadn't been very many opportunities, but Hyle had never… Well, he'd never done a lot of things, but all of those simply boiled down to a single never: that he'd never taken much pleasure in her body. He'd taken his pleasure, sure, but she'd felt almost incidental to it.

And now there was Jaime. She'd wondered, at first, if tonight was going to be like those few nights with Hyle, with Jaime focused on his own pleasure to the exclusion of all else. She hadn't really minded, she'd told herself. She'd never wanted to touch Hyle even half as much as she _needed_ to touch Jaime. But Jaime had kept asking her what she wanted, wouldn't leave her alone until she admitted to it, and then helped her all the way to finding and taking it. He'd proved himself Hyle's opposite in every possible way, and he-

Her hips lifted right off the bed and her breath caught. _Oh…_

 _How did he know to lick in such tight little circles right **there**?_ she wondered, when she could think at least semi-coherently again—and then decided that she didn't want to know. Nothing mattered, here and now, but _touch_.

Her hips arched up and into him, rocking point and counterpoint to the rhythm set by his tongue, because she couldn't keep still, wanted more, _craved_ more, the need building and building until his hand clutching her thigh, and even his mouth on her clit, was simply no longer enough. She wanted not to feel… alone, she realised, not to feel as if sensation—however intense—was all there was. She wanted the rest of him. So Brienne didn't protest when Jaime lifted his head this time, because then he was moving back up to kiss her, his hand coming up to rest on her shoulder, the entire length of his body pressing close against her, like relief in human form. She smiled into the kiss, her mouth moving over his, messy and passionate and everything that wasn't careful, her hand hard against his back, clutching him to her, as she tasted herself on his lips. It felt like they were in this together again.

She slipped her hand down between them, and found his hard cock, an easy arm's length away—as if her arm was made to fit there. She took it in her hand, enjoying the heat and weight of it—enjoying his soft gasp against her lips. She closed her fingers around him and gave a gentle squeeze.

The kiss ended.

"I thought this was supposed to be my turn?" Jaime said, green eyes dark and wide.

Brienne blinked. "I don't… think so? I didn't know we were taking turns." It had been all about her so far, since the moment he'd asked to taste her instead of the food. Was he saying… What _was_ he saying?

"Of course it is. Last time you got what you wanted. And this time I'm getting to do what I want. So… my turn." There was a smile in his eyes, but he appeared to be quite serious about what he was saying, as if it was only logical.

That was his idea of getting what he wanted? Touching her in just about every possible way? _Why?_ The question was poised on the tip of her tongue, but she didn't ask it. She thought again of the almost anguished look of fulfilment on his face when he came, lost in sensation all because of her desperately wanted touch, because of _her_ , and she shivered.

She knew the answer to _Why_.

"I suppose it is your turn, then," she said, nodding—because what else could she say?

"Good." Jaime leaned in and pressed a hard kiss to her lips, chasing away anything else she might have said. Still, she wanted to protest when the kiss ended almost as soon as it had begun, but then, to her surprise, he said, "Just a second," as he turned away from her, reached over to her bedside table, and slid open the top drawer.

 _That_ made her want to protest even more. He was probably looking for the lotion that she'd used on him earlier—but what if he saw everything that she kept in there? Him seeing that, knowing that, would make her feel…

Jaime slipped her vibrator out of its cloth bag and held it up, smirking wickedly, but—as far as Brienne could tell—not in shock or even surprise.

She closed her eyes, feeling more exposed even than when he'd been face to face with her most secret places. And yet it wasn't a revelation to him to find her toy in the drawer, that much was clear. He'd expected it of her. Was there something about her that- No. He'd already known that it was there. Somehow. When…? The breath hissed out between Brienne's clenched teeth: when she was asleep before, of course. He'd even _told_ her that he'd checked to see if she had any condoms before he ordered them.

He'd ordered condoms, home delivery. She still couldn’t quite believe it, but if anyone was brazen enough to do that, and without turning a hair, that person had to be Jaime Lannister.

"Brienne?"

Brienne opened her eyes to find the smirk gone from Jaime's lips.

"I said it was my turn, but I won't do anything you don't want. You know that, right?" He looked and sounded so serious, and quiet with it, that she found herself wondering: who was this man? He'd seemed so straightforward at first, a client who needed a very specific sort of treatment that she had the skills to provide. The situation was made a little more difficult because he was also rich and spoilt and quick to fire off a sharp comment with no real provocation, but it was hardly complicated. But now as she gazed at this altogether different man, naked in her bed, and yet who still looked very much the same for all that, she felt she'd barely scratched his surface.

“I do know,” she replied, just as quietly, looking him straight in the eyes, refusing to let herself look away, “And I want… what you want.”

The serious expression disappeared from his face so quickly that Brienne was left feeling that she might have imagined it.

“Lie back and get comfortable,” he said—and after that there were no more words.

He didn’t switch on the vibrator immediately, as she’d more than half-expected. Instead, she felt the touch of his hand on her knee, and her legs were falling open without her even needing to make a decision about it, before his tongue was back where it was most needed.

She didn’t feel lonely this time, didn't feel as if he was anything like as far away from her as he had seemed before, maybe because she knew for sure she wasn’t alone in enjoying this. She just felt… she _felt_.

In hardly any time at all he had her back on the brink, her whole body thrumming with want, aching with it. His mouth left her, but his hand took its place before she had much time to miss it, one finger slipping a little clumsily along and down and between—and then thrusting inside. It wasn't quite as good as having his cock filling her, but it assuaged some of the ache—for a moment, until his finger pressed right _there_ , stoking the need instead, making her hips arch up and forcing a hoarse cry from her lips. Another finger joined the first, pressing up and in, and it was almost more than Brienne could bear. She was almost there. _Almost_.

She felt the smooth head of the vibrator against her clit a second before Jaime hit the switch, and then she was _gone_ , not just falling over the edge but flying over it, beyond sight and sound, beyond everything but the one, perfect point, poised where light and heat, tension and sensation, coalesced.

When she eventually floated back towards reality, the buzz of the vibrator was the first thing she became aware of, _too much_ against the wild throbbing of her pulse. She lifted a hand to push it away, but it was already gone. The buzzing stopped, and then she felt the dip of the mattress as Jaime settled in beside her.

She opened her eyes, smiling sleepily at him and at his answering smile as he leaned down to kiss her. It should have been beautiful, intimate, relaxed, and it was—until Brienne lifted her hand to his arm and felt the tension there.

She broke the kiss, drew back a little, and this time she noted the telltale tightness along his jawline that spoke of pain.

Her eyes widened as she realised: he'd used both hands. The fingers of his left hand had been thoroughly occupied, so he'd had to hold the vibrator with his right.

She pushed herself up on her elbows and then sat up properly. Jaime stared up at her, frowning a little in an unspoken question. Brienne answered just as silently, by reaching down to lay her hand over his injured one.

She didn't miss his flinch.

The rules were completely clear when it came to physiotherapists treating family members, or… or lovers. You weren't supposed to. It was as simple and straightforward as that. When she'd left his apartment earlier this evening, Brienne had fully intended never to touch Jaime again—and even though she'd spent most of the time since doing little else _but_ touch him, that resolution still applied more than ever to the ruins of their professional relationship.

Except that Brienne didn't have it in her to leave anyone in pain and suffering when she was right there and could do something to alleviate it.

What happened behind closed doors between the two of them tonight was nobody's business but their own: that's what Jaime had said at the end of their conversation in the kitchen, right before they'd shared the kiss that had started them on the path to the current moment. It was an easy justification, one that she was going to agonise about come morning regardless of anything else they did tonight. Given all that, touching him to provide him with some relief from pain was hardly going to make much difference to her, but right now it would make all the difference in the world to Jaime. And it would be the last time; that much, at least, she was sure of.

She reached over to get the bottle of lotion from her bedside drawer. "I'm going to massage your hand," she said. "Lie back and get comfortable."

Jaime's eyebrows rose—clearly he recognised her not very subtle echoing of his own words—but he did as she instructed. "Because in your experience the massage is more effective when the whole body is as relaxed as possible?" he asked.

Of course he had to quote herself back at her _and_ choose that moment to glance down at the part of him that was very evidently not relaxed at all.

Brienne rubbed lotion slowly between her palms to warm it, glad that she was all out of blushes at this point. "Yes, I do find that. Hold your arm up and let your elbow take the weight." She tried to sound as she would when talking to any patient.

He grinned—clearly recognising that line, too—but when she took his hand in hers, he didn't flinch this time.

She ran her hands lightly up along his forearm, one and then the other, establishing the rhythm. He let out a sigh when she moved on to his hand, supporting it from beneath with her fingertips as she stroked her thumbs gently along the top in an outward motion.

He turned his hand over without prompting once she was done with the upper side of it, completely unselfconscious—so very different from how he'd been during that first massage she'd given him, the first time ever she'd touched him at all. But the relief in the sigh he let out now sounded as heartfelt as it had been that first time, though no longer surprised.

"Keep going," he said in a low voice.

Brienne kept going, employing the same slow, relentless motion on the palm of his hand as she'd used on the top, sweeping up from heel to fingers again and again. When she curled her fingers around his thumb, she wasn't surprised to hear his breath catch—and she was just as unsurprised to see his left hand slip down to his cock.

They shared the rhythm after that. Brienne found it almost impossible to focus, distracted by the movements of Jaime's left arm while she rubbed her fingers in slow circles along the length of his right thumb.

They didn't last, neither of them. Brienne squeezed the tip of Jaime's thumb and knew the massage was over. Her concentration, such as it was, was spent. Jaime's left hand was on her shoulder in the next instant, urging her down into a suddenly desperate kiss. She half-expected that he would want her hand on his cock again, but, "Lie back, _please_ ," was what came out in a forceful whisper against her lips.

Brienne lay back as Jaime grabbed a condom and tore the packaging open with his teeth, fumbling in his haste, and then he was covering her, his cock hard against her thigh as Brienne shifted, tilting her hips. They both sighed as he thrust into her at last, there where she needed him, better than fingers or toys or anything else because it meant he was as close to her as it was possible to be, pressing her into the mattress as her legs came up to wrap around him.

They didn't last at this, either. They'd only just found their shared rhythm, it felt like, when Brienne was bucking her hips and clenching around Jaime, while he went still above her, pulsing inside her for long moments. Afterwards, he collapsed onto his elbows, gasping out words of praise against her neck, filthy and admiring, interspersed with little kisses and what might have been one or two muttered endearments. Brienne couldn't decide which she liked best. All of it together, maybe.

Of all the time she'd spent in this bed over the years, this moment was surely the best—and not just because she'd been by herself and asleep almost all of those other times.

After a while, Jaime rolled off her, and got up to sort out the condom—and, as it turned out, to carry the leftover food to the kitchen. Brienne padded to the bathroom to use the toilet and clean herself up a little. She got beneath the covers when she returned to the bed, and when Jaime joined her there a few minutes later their arms came around each other easily, fitting together without having to stop and work it out.

They traded lazy kisses for a long time after that, until eventually the kisses weren't lazy any more, and weren't just kisses either. Time had long since ceased to have any real meaning to Brienne when at last they came together again, or later when she slept a while before being kissed back to wakefulness. All she knew in the end was that they didn't stray far from each other's side all through that long, lovely night.

She woke again as the cold light of dawn touched its fingers to the edges of the blind. She reached over to switch on the bedside lamp. Jaime muttered something in his sleep as Brienne sat up, but he didn't stir any more than that. While he didn't look remotely childlike or innocent in sleep, he did look more relaxed than she'd ever seen him, all trace of strain gone from his face. She would let herself take at least some of the credit for that. And he looked ridiculously attractive too, of course, all golden skin and hair—even his blond eyelashes were thick and golden instead of sparse and pale, for the Seven's sake—and perfect proportions. Too perfect. She couldn't let herself forget that.

Brienne sat there for a long time, gazing down at Jaime's sleeping face, and felt her heart break just a little.

It was going to be the hardest thing she'd ever done, to watch him walk away.


	11. Brienne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. Life took a bad turn in a few different ways at once back in June. Things have now improved and my writing brain is back online - so here we are.

Brienne must have dozed off at some point, because she woke again to proper morning light, alone in bed this time. Not that she had to wonder about Jaime's whereabouts for more than the first muzzy second or two.

" _Fuck!_ " he said succinctly from the other side of the room. "Fuckfuckfuck."

Brienne glanced up. Jaime was standing by the open bedroom door, completely naked and rubbing his temple, silhouetted in the morning sun. He looked… He looked...

It took Brienne a moment or two to remember how to string words into a sentence. "You forgot to duck going through the door," she said eventually. It wasn't a question. She'd hit her head on the low doorways more than once in the first few days after she'd moved into this place, but never since. Pain had a way of being a good teacher…

Brienne winced inside. She and Jaime were going to have to have a conversation about pain—pain and a few other things—before the day was much older.

"Fuck," Jaime said again, and then, "Ow." He was still rubbing his head, rather ostentatiously now, about as subtle as a child begging for attention.

"Would you like me to come and kiss it better?" Brienne asked, and tried to ignore the way her mouth felt suddenly as dry as her tone, tried to ignore the flashes of memory from last night, when she'd kissed him almost everywhere.

He was across the room and on the bed beside her in a matter of seconds. "No need to come to me," he said, his voice a low rumble and anything but child-like. "Right there." He touched his hand to the side of his head and tilted it towards her.

Brienne sat up. "Okay, since I—"

And then _he_ was leaning in and kissing _her_ , a long lingering kiss that left her a little breathless even before his hand slipped up to her breast.

"Good morning," Jaime said, drawing back a little, green eyes warm and mischievous. His hand remained where it was, gently kneading.

Brienne had to let out one shaky breath and try again with another before she managed to reply, "Good morning,"—because it _was_ a good morning right at the moment.

For the moment.

"Breakfast?" Jaime enquired, letting his eyes roam southward. His hand was still at her breast. It wasn't at all clear whether he was asking about having breakfast or having… her.

Brienne grabbed her phone from the bedside table and checked the time; her alarm was due to go off in just under five minutes. There would be time for breakfast— _actual_ breakfast—but not a whole lot else. Not once they'd talked.

"Breakfast." She closed her hand over his and gently removed it from her breast. "And no comments about working up an appetite," she warned.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he assured her. "It's natural to be hungry first thing in the morning." His gaze swept over her bare skin in a way that made Brienne feel as if she should want to pull the sheet up to her chin.

She didn't pull the sheet up to her chin, though. She didn't move at all, but just stayed where she was, letting herself be looked at. The looking went on for long seconds, and when Jaime's eyes at last returned to her face...

Oh yes, she thought, when he'd asked about breakfast, he'd definitely been talking about _breakfast_ , not food.

"Breakfast," she said again, as firmly as she could, and this time she pulled back the covers and got up to retrieve her bathrobe from the hook behind the bathroom door. Yes, breakfast first, then the words that they were both avoiding. Or at least, the words that Brienne was avoiding. Jaime seemed to be acting as if this might be the first morning of many. Or was that just how he always was the morning following a one night stand? Was that the etiquette for these sorts of situations?

But of course the etiquette for this particular situation didn't exist, since it wasn't ever supposed to happen.

It couldn't happen again.

Jaime was pulling on his jeans as Brienne turned around, tying the belt of her robe. He smiled at her, and the smile was not so much heated or even mischievous this time, but… fond. Like a man who believed that this _was_ the first morning of many that they'd have together. Surely he hadn't forgotten everything she'd said last night? Or what he’d said himself? That it was just for the night, the two of them, behind closed doors.

And now that night had ended.

He met her by the bedroom door. "Leave it untied?" he asked, hand going to her waist.

Brienne didn't need to ask why, not after last night. Not after her unbuttoned shirt and everything that had come after it. She didn't answer, but kissed him instead, because when he was standing this close it was hard _not_ to kiss him. It was hard to think of anything else, including what she had to say and what she had to do.

His hand slipped beneath her robe and she whimpered into the kiss as her nipple hardened quickly beneath the sure touch of his fingers. For a moment, there was nothing but this, nothing but the two of them.

It took every bit of willpower Brienne possessed to draw back. Her lips were tingling, already missing the pressure of his against them. This close, she could see that his eyes were not just green but flecked with gold. Green and gold and almost guileless: that was the look he turned on her now.

_Almost_ guileless.

Brienne stiffened, and when he flashed a smile that was somehow just a fraction _too_ easy, she was sure of it: whatever was going on in Jaime's head this morning, it wasn't simply a case of forgetting. He was pretending, ignoring all the very pertinent points about professional ethics she'd made yesterday evening—ignoring what he himself had said about it being just for that night—as if those words had never been spoken, and trying to get her to go along with the pretence until it turned into reality.

And that decided her. Now. It had to be now. Before this got out of hand. Before it got _further_ out of hand. "Jaime," she began.

The doorbell rang.

Brienne's eyes flew to Jaime's in an unspoken question.

He shrugged in response. "It won't be for me. No one knows I'm here—well, except for the delivery guy from last night and I doubt it's him." The corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile.

Brienne bit her lip. "I don't know why anyone would be calling at this hour. Maybe it's a delivery?" Whoever it was, they really knew how to pick their moments. Jaime's smile turned into a smirk as she reached into her robe and wordlessly removed his hand from her breast. "I'll get it," she said, holding up a hand when he would have followed her out of the room. As far as anyone else was concerned, she'd spent the night at home alone, just like always.

She was still half-expecting that it would turn out to be an early morning parcel delivery, and that the person who'd rung the bell would be as much a stranger to her as she was to them, so she was surprised when she opened the door and found that she did know them. Well, one of them. There were two men standing there. One was a sharp-faced, middle-aged man with rather lank shoulder-length brown hair who was completely unknown to her, but the other was younger and more than familiar. He was Podrick, her upstairs neighbour.

The older man was standing in front, looking her up and down quite unsubtly with a speculative, assessing eye. Brienne ignored him, and turned to Podrick. "What can I do for you this morning, Pod?" she asked. Some of her mail must have ended up in his letterbox again, almost for sure.

Podrick was looking down at his feet. He glanced up, as if surprised at being addressed first, but then he looked away again, off to the side this time. "I saw your table sitting out here, and I just wanted to check that everything was okay."

Brienne blinked. "My…" She peered around the doorway onto the narrow porch—and there was her treatment table, propped up by the front window. Oh, goodness. She swallowed, clearing her throat. "Thank you for checking with me, Pod, but I'm fine. My mind must have been on something else when I got home last night." _Something else, indeed_ , she thought, and tried to will away the sudden flush to her cheeks. She'd been so distracted by the sight of Jaime at her front door that she'd left her treatment table sitting outside all night and hadn't given it a second thought. She hadn't even given it a first thought. She'd forgotten all about it.

"By the look of that table, I'm guessing you're the physiotherapist that lives here. Brienne Tarth, right?" the other man put in then. His voice matched his face: rough around the edges but sure of himself, and with the sort of accent that had once been common in Flea Bottom before the gentrification really took over.

"How do you know who I am?" Brienne turned quickly back to face him, regarding him through narrowed eyes.

"I'm looking for Jaime Lannister. You wouldn't happen to have seen him recently, would you?"

"She has, and very recently," an amused male voice said from behind her.

Brienne felt Jaime’s hand come to rest on her shoulder as he put his arm around her, and her teeth clenched. So much for letting the world believe that she'd spent last night alone.

“Your brother’s trying to find you,” the other man said, looking past Brienne to Jaime. “He got a bit concerned when you weren't answering your phone again, and then he realized that your car was gone and you hadn’t come home.” He didn’t say ‘all night’, but then, he didn’t need to.

Brienne spared a quick glance at Podrick. She expected him to be staring at his feet again, but instead he was looking at her, eyes as big as saucers—and a moment later he _was_ staring at his feet again. The tips of his ears were bright pink.

"Well, you've found me, Bronn," Jaime said. He turned to Brienne. "This is Bronn. He works for me sometimes."

"And sometimes for his brother," Bronn put in. "Which is why I'm here right now."

"But you hardly need to hang around on Brienne's doorstep now that you know where I am," Jaime said, fingers tightening over her supraspinatus muscle when she tried to shrug free of his grip. "Report in and inform Tyrion that you found me and that I'm fine—nothing more than that—and tell him that I'll call him later."

"He's not going to like that," Bronn pointed out.

"Five hundred gold dragons on top of whatever he's paying you this week."

Bronn grinned. "Always a pleasure doing business with the Lannister brothers." He turned to Podrick. "Come on, lad. We're not needed here right now." He winked, though whether it was directed at Pod or Jaime—or even at Brienne herself—wasn't entirely clear, and clapped a hand on Pod's shoulder.

But Podrick wasn't going anywhere just yet. He was looking up again, eyes fixed not on Brienne's face but on her shoulder, and Jaime's hand resting there. "You're sure everything's okay, Brienne?" he asked. He was standing very straight, feet planted a little way apart, and for the first time since she'd met him two years ago he looked more like a man and less like an overgrown, uncertain boy.

"I'm fine," she said, half touched, half irritated. "Thank you."

Podrick nodded. "I'll leave you to… to… whatever," he said, and suddenly he was himself again, red-faced and not knowing where to look.

"Until later, when I'll expect that payment," Bronn said to Jaime. "And in the meantime, don't do anything I wouldn't do—which should give you plenty of scope." He cackled—there was no other word for it—as he turned away, and, after one last glance at Brienne, Podrick followed him down the front path to the gate.

Brienne pulled away from Jaime, not having to attempt to be subtle about it now that there was no one else to see, and hurried over to retrieve her treatment table. Jaime held the front door open for her as she squeezed past him with the table, and shut it behind her. As soon as she'd set the table down against the wall in the hallway, she whirled around to face him.

"What do you think you were doing just now?" she demanded.

"Talking to someone who works for me. Oh, and one of your neighbours, I take it?" Jaime sounded unperturbed, but there was a tense stillness about him, in the way he held himself, arms folded across his chest, that had been absent since their conversation in the kitchen last night.

"How did he know you were here?"

"He seemed fairly surprised to see me," Jaime said, a tiny, cool smile playing around the corners of his lips as Brienne's brows creased in a frown and she opened her mouth to speak. "Oh, you mean Bronn?" he added, as if he hadn't known all along exactly what she meant. "He was the one who found your address for me yesterday. I doubt it would have taken him much guesswork to look for me here this morning."

Brienne nodded. She hadn't even considered how Jaime had found her home address. She'd felt so surprised—and oddly relieved, and a thousand other emotions all at once—when she saw him standing outside her door last night that she hadn't thought of… well, lots of things, as it turned out.

But there were one or two things she'd been absolutely crystal clear about. Hadn't she?

"Don't tell me you don't remember last night," she began.

"Brienne," Jaime chided, but gently. He let his arms drop to his sides, and some of that wary tension went out of him. For a second, she saw the man who'd smiled at her so warmly only minutes ago.

"Before that," she said, ploughing on before he had a chance to try that smile on her again and derail the conversation completely. "Yesterday evening, when I said that I couldn't be seen with you. I meant it."

"Bronn won't tell anyone," Jaime said. "And I presume you can say the same for your neighbour?"

"Podrick won't say anything to anyone, but that isn't the point."

"Isn't it?" He raised an eyebrow.

"You know it isn't."

They were both silent for a moment, though Jaime looked as if he were about to say something several times before he finally spoke, and said:

"Then tell me what _is_ the point—because I'd say that being seen only by people who aren't going to talk is effectively the same as not being seen at all."

"It's not—" Brienne bit her lip, tried again: "I still can't be seen with you."

Jaime nodded slowly. Carefully. There was no hint of a smile on his lips. "Next time—"

"There can't be a next time. Don't you understand that?!" The words burst out of Brienne, and she clenched her fists at her sides. This wasn't at all the calm, rational conversation that she'd intended to conduct over breakfast. Instead, here she was, standing in the hallway in robe and bare feet, not sure just what she'd say next, and only just stopping herself from yelling.

"No, actually I don't understand," Jaime said, his voice infuriatingly quiet, almost conversational. "We can have other nights like last night, and just not answer the door if someone knocks in the morning." He made it all sound so simple, so reasonable—when it wasn't reasonable at all.

"No, we can't," Brienne said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "It will come out somehow. Maybe your brother will pay Bronn more than you do next time, and then _he'll_ find out. And I'll be—" She broke off, and swallowed hard. "I _can't_ be your dirty little secret, Jaime. Not just can't, but won't. And you can't be mine. I've worked too hard just to give up my career for the sake of a… a… _fling_."

"A fling," Jaime repeated, and rubbed his chin in apparent thought. "You know, I've been called a lot of things in my time, but I don't think anyone has ever… _flung_ that one at me. You really think that's what this is?"

"No," she said in a low voice, which somehow wasn't any calmer than the almost uncontrolled anger of a moment ago. "I don't think, I _know_ that it can't be any more than that. One night. That's it."

"Because you spent four days out of your entire life employed as my physiotherapist?" Jaime said, his voice barely raised, still, but all polite scorn. "You're saying we can't have anything to do with each other, ever, thanks to a business association that lasted less than a week?"

"A _professional_ association."

"Whatever you want to call it. But do you think it will make any difference, say, a year from now?"

Brienne pinched the bridge of her nose. "Of course what's between us will fade in time if we don't see each other. I'm not saying that it won't—just the opposite. That's why ending things now would be for the best." She felt as weary as if she'd just worked a full day at the clinic—and she hadn't even had her breakfast yet.

Breakfast. He'd almost had her for breakfast, just minutes ago. Now he stood there, almost close enough to kiss her, but… there couldn't be any more kisses. Now, or ever.

"Please don't insult my intelligence by telling me that breaking this off would be for my own good," Jaime said quietly. "Do you think I'd share the story of what really happened all those years ago in Dorne with just anyone? I told you because I trust you. And as for the rest of last night… Are you going to deny the connection we've found? Because I don't know about you, but nights like last night don't happen to me very often. Or at all."

"No, I'm not denying that," Brienne said, just as quietly. She stood a little straighter, steeling herself for what had to come next. "But that doesn't change the fact that breaking this off would still be for your own good. Right now—"

"All right, then. Forget about right now. But what about a month from now? Or two months? Or six? How long until it fades enough to satisfy you?" he asked tightly, his whole body tensing as his calm front dropped away before Brienne's eyes.

Brienne shook her head. "It's not— It isn't only that. I can't nominate a period of time and say that that should work, as if I'm prescribing it like a course of treatment or drugs. Even more than giving us both some professional distance, it's what you do in that time that's important."

"Such as?" Jaime demanded.

Brienne sighed. "When was the last time you left your apartment, Jaime? And don't say last night. Had you left home at all since you were released from hospital?"

Jaime shrugged, a gesture that was in no way relaxed. "You already know the answer to that. And your point is?"

"You need to heal, Jaime. Not just in body but in spirit. You need not to _need_ me, in any way. You need to take up the reins of your life again, regardless of whether I or any other health professional is there to help you. I can't tell you how long that will take, except that you won't do it in a day or a week or even a month. But really, it's up to you."

"So you're saying that if I did all that, and given enough time, you'd see me again?"

It was a good question, the key question. And Jaime knew it, that was clear. He stood there, not looking away—not letting her look away—as he waited for her answer.

Brienne let out a long breath. "If you— I don't know."

"That's not a 'no'."

She closed her eyes briefly. "It should be a no."

"But it's not."

Brienne opened her eyes and found Jaime still watching her, intent, the look in his eyes more serious than anything she'd ever seen there. Ever? She'd known him four days.

It felt like half a lifetime, at least.

"No, it's not a no."

The slow smile that broke across Jaime's face was painful to watch. All the hope and determination Brienne saw there simply reinforced all the reasons why they had to part. He needed her, too much.

It had never in her life hurt so much to be right.

"So, how long?" Jaime said. "A year—no, six months. Give me six months to prove that I want you but don't need you, that there's no danger of anyone exploiting anybody else, and then we'll meet up, and you'll see for yourself."

"All right, six months." A goal was always useful for any patient facing a long recovery period. "We can't have any contact before then," Brienne warned him. "No calls or messages. Nothing."

Jaime nodded. "If that's what you're determined on, we'd better decide on the place right now."

"It doesn't matter. You choose somewhere," Brienne said. Because it truly didn't matter.

"We're parting at the bottom of Aegon's Hill, so why don't we meet again at the top? I'll book us a table in the restaurant at the Red Keep, six months from today. What time?"

"Lunchtime, maybe?" Brienne suggested. That made it a little less like a date, at least.

"I'll be there at midday, the third day of the new year," he told her, an almost zealous light kindling in his green eyes that left Brienne in no doubt that he meant it. Now, anyway.

"All right," she said. She tried to smile. Her cheeks felt tight and strange. She glanced down the hallway towards the kitchen. "I need to have breakfast and get ready for work."

"Brienne? You'll be there? At midday on the third?" His gaze was suddenly sharp, and oh, why did he have to be _smart_ , as well as rich and famous, and good-looking and good in bed?

And her patient.

"I'll be there," she said.

He kissed her before she had a chance to try to smile again. She kissed him back, and it was just as good as any of the other kisses they'd shared throughout the night. Just as good, and so much worse. The last kiss, the final one.

"I won't stay for breakfast," Jaime said, once they paused for breath and Brienne took a hasty step back. He half-smiled, his hand still cupping her face. "I have a life I need to be getting back to, and a brother who isn't exactly known for his patience."

"You should go," Brienne agreed, because he _should_. As soon as was humanly possible.

And yet she felt the loss of his touch when his hand left her face, and he turned away from her at last. She only just stopped herself from reaching out to grasp his arm, and telling him _Wait, not yet._

She followed him into the bedroom and watched as Jaime pulled on his t-shirt, followed by socks and shoes, and the lover she'd had in her bed all night turned into the man that the outside world knew.

He would have kissed her again, there by the front door just before he stepped outside, but she put out a hand, stopping him. Stopping herself. "Better not," she muttered.

He nodded, and glanced out the door, but there was no one to be seen either inside or outside her front gate.

"Goodbye, Jaime," Brienne said, because she had no idea what else was left to say.

Jaime shook his head. "Not goodbye, Brienne. Just until we meet again—in six months." He stepped over the threshold and walked down the path to the gate, stopping there as he turned and raised a hand in farewell. "I'll expect to see you wearing those boots, six months from now," he called, and flashed her a grin.

Brienne was still trying to decide how to answer, or whether to answer at all, when he shut the gate. In another moment, he'd passed in front of the house next door—and was gone.

The house felt eerily quiet after she closed the door behind her. She reminded herself that this was how her mornings had been every day for years. The silence should feel familiar, not strange. Not wrong.

She made her way to the kitchen, intending to grab a quick breakfast before she wound up being late for work, but instead she stopped in the doorway—stopped and stared down at the crumpled paper bag sitting in the middle of the counter. The cupcakes—the ones she'd bought for Jaime yesterday, and then he'd brought with him as some sort of peace offering last night—had been sitting there all night, as forgotten as her treatment table, abandoned on the porch.

Brienne's breath caught in her throat. She left the cupcakes where they were and went back into the bedroom, where she sat down heavily on the side of the bed.

Feeling oddly detached—almost as if she were watching herself from across the room—she phoned the clinic and left a message on the office voice mail, saying that she was unwell and wouldn't be at work today. It was the first time she'd ever called in sick, and it wasn't even really a lie. She did feel sick, deep in the pit of her stomach. Sick, and sad and so terribly alone.

She wouldn't see Jaime again. He was determined to get his life back together, to prove that he wasn't dependent on her in any way, that he no longer needed her, and no doubt he really did believe that once he'd achieved all that they could resume things where they'd left off this morning. He didn't understand. Not yet. But eventually he would. Eventually he would understand what Brienne already knew: Once he had his real life back, there'd be so many options open to him that he wouldn't miss her.

He needed not to need her, for his own good, and for hers, too. But if he didn't need her, he wouldn't choose her.

Brienne pressed her face against the pillow, and let the tears come.


	12. Epilogue: Brienne and Jaime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We'll meet again  
>  Don't know where  
> Don't know when  
> But I know we'll meet again some sunny day_
> 
> \- Vera Lynn

_Six months later..._

The third day of the new year dawned grey and miserable. At least, it did on the island of Tarth.

Brienne stood right at the centre of the curve of the great compass window on the western side of her home, and looked out through the gloom as she sipped her morning cup of tea.

Today she was due to meet with Jaime, six months to the day since they'd parted. A lot had changed for Brienne in that time—and, apparently, for Jaime, too. She'd seen the pictures online, of Jaime out and about over the past few months. He'd put on some weight, she'd thought, and tried not to notice what a good look it was on him, tried not to think in detail about the subtle changes to his body, the added strength and muscle definition, the way it might feel to the touch of her hands...

Once, she'd even spotted him in the footage accompanying a TV news report about some sort of fundraising gala ball. She hadn't been able to take her eyes off him. She'd hunted down those few seconds of video and replayed them over and over, feeling like a starving woman being thrown a few crumbs from a table she couldn't reach. He'd looked better than anyone had a right to in something as standard as a black tux, but more than that, he'd looked relaxed and happy as he laughed with someone just out of shot.

Brienne had wondered about the identity of that person quite a bit.

She kept having to remind herself that this was proof that he was no longer hiding away in his apartment, and that that was a very good thing. He'd got his life back, just as she'd hoped he would.

She was glad for him. She _was_.

But the man in those news reports, healthy and at ease with himself and those around him, wouldn't want to remember the time when he'd been the opposite of that. He wouldn't want the embarrassment of being reminded of how he'd fixated on someone who'd provided him with care for less than a week.

Knowing that should have made it all the easier for Brienne to keep to her resolution not to show up for their appointment at the end of six months. But somehow it wasn't easy at all.

Brienne had spent months arguing with herself about the pointlessness of it, particularly after she made the decision to leave the Winterfell Clinic—and King's Landing itself—and move back to Tarth to set up her own physiotherapy practice. What kind of idiot would go to all the trouble of making the trek back to King's Landing, only to wait conspicuously in an expensive restaurant for a man who wasn't going to show up?

 _But what if he did show up?_ she'd argued right back at herself. What if he showed up and she didn't? He'd expect her to keep her word—that was why he'd made her say she'd be there—and did she really expect any less of herself?

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the voice arguing for the hopeless path had finally won out. Not long before the old year had made way for the new, Brienne had booked tickets on the ferry across to the mainland, and the bus that would take her from Storm's End to King's Landing.

But now…

Brienne stared out over the huge, grey, white-capped waves. 'White horses', her father had used to call them, though today they looked too fierce to be anything equine. Today they looked more like wolves. Or lions.

The latest round of winter storms had been raging out there on Shipbreaker Bay for days now, and showed little sign of letting up. The ferry hadn't been running for almost a week, and there was no question of anyone taking a plane up in conditions like that.

It was almost funny, when Brienne considered how long she'd agonised about whether to return to King's Landing today, that the decision had been taken right out of her hands by something as simple, and implacable, as the weather.

Brienne wasn't laughing.

Now she'd never know whether Jaime would have shown up at that restaurant—though of course she did know. Didn't she? He wouldn't miss her today. He probably wouldn't even give her a thought, except possibly to shake his head at the memory of their night together and be glad that she'd insisted on this separation and provided him with the out that he hadn't then realised he needed. He-

Brienne jumped, almost spilling her mug of tea, as someone hammered the heavy brass knocker on the front door. Who in the seven hells was calling at this hour? She turned away from the window, and for a fleeting second was back in her house in King's Landing, the last time someone had knocked on her door at breakfast time. For one wild moment, she wondered if she'd open the door to find Podrick or that man who worked for Jaime sometimes standing there—or even Jaime himself. But of course it couldn't be. There was no way for any one of them to reach the island, even if they wanted to.

Whoever was at the door rapped the knocker again, even more impatiently this time. Brienne set down her tea and went to see who it was.

He stood on her doorstep in a swirl of rain or possibly sleet, the wind whipping up the bottom edge of his dull green raincoat, tall and blond and handsome, and… blue-eyed. He was her cousin Endrew, though 'cousin' was stretching things a bit, since the connection was a good six generations back. Still, he was the only other Tarth on Tarth—and the only pilot who lived there.

"Morning, Brienne," he said, with a flash of perfect white teeth. "I'm flying to the main today and I heard you might be in need of a lift."

~*~

The next few hours were amongst the most hair-raising, while simultaneously the slowest passing, of Brienne's life.

She had been correct in thinking that no pilot in his right mind would consider flying across Shipbreaker Bay in this weather—but Endrew wasn't planning to do that. Instead, he flew his seaplane first east, then south, skirting the edge of the storm until he was able to chance flying west over the Stepstones and the tip of Dorne, before finally turning north. All that time, the little plane was buffeted by turbulence, and rain spattered frequently against the windscreen. Brienne was vaguely glad that she hadn't had any appetite for breakfast before she left, as she dry-retched yet again into a paper bag.

For months she'd wondered what this day would be like, but she'd never envisaged this.

"This is a trip you'll never forget," Endrew yelled cheerily above the noise of the engine, and Brienne resisted the almost overwhelming urge to strangle him, only living relative or no. Endrew really was a reckless thrillseeker, but he was also the only reason they were still up in the air.

She let out a long sigh of relief several days—well, hours—later when Endrew touched down on the cold steel waters of the Gods Eye.

"Thanks for getting me here," Brienne said once she'd clambered out onto the pontoon by the Harrenhal wharf, and Endrew had retrieved her luggage from the hold.

"But not thanks for the ride itself," Endrew said with a knowing grin, as a steady drizzle of rain slowly drenched them.

Brienne had no idea where he got that relentlessly cheerful nature from. "No, not for that," she said, the hint of an answering grin tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Let me know if you need me to fly you back. I'll be going back and forth between Tarth and Harrenhal for the next couple of days."

The smile died on Brienne's lips. "Thanks," she said again, "but I'm not sure exactly what my plans are yet. It depends… well, it _depends_."

Endrew considered her thoughtfully for a moment. "I hope he's worth it," he said, looking completely serious for the first time all day.

Brienne's cheeks flushed hot. She hadn't mentioned her reason for needing to be in King's Landing today to anyone. "I... Uh… Well…"

He let out a little huff of laughter, amused but not unkind. "You take care of yourself, Brienne."

"You too," Brienne managed.

He nodded, and turned back to unload the rest of his cargo from the hold.

~*~

It took Brienne longer than she would have liked to find the bus station. And then:

"You've just missed the bus to King's Landing," the woman behind the counter said, bored and not attempting to hide it.

"When's the next one?" Brienne asked.

"Two hours," the woman said. "Do you want to buy a ticket?"

"Two hours?" Dismay hit Brienne like a fist to the ribs. It was already almost eleven o'clock. She would have been late for her appointment at the Red Keep even if she'd caught the bus that had just departed.

"That's what I said. Do you want to buy a ticket?"

Brienne bought a ticket. And then there was nothing to do but sit and wait—and think.

She was going to be late. She was going to be _really_ late. She wanted to text Jaime, to let him know she was on her way, and yet at the same time she didn't want to, as well. Realistically, there was next to no chance that he was going to be there. Did she really want to embarrass both of them by revealing that she was still intending to keep the appointment that he almost certainly regretted making and wouldn't want to be reminded about?

But what if he did show up? What if he waited, maybe waited for a while, and there was no sign of her?

 _If he really wants to see you, he'll wait as long as it takes for you to arrive,_ the stupidly hopeful voice in her head, the one that wouldn't quite be silenced, pointed out.

 _And he won't be there, anyway, so it won't matter to him whether you arrive or not,_ the depressingly realistic voice that did most of the talking in her head added dryly.

So Brienne didn't call or text, though she took out her phone several times. Once, she even got as far as opening the message app and holding her finger over the screen. But instead of typing anything, she closed the app again and flipped to one of the e-books she'd loaded onto her phone last week, right after she'd booked her ferry ticket to King's Landing.

She read the opening paragraphs at least five times, and still had no idea what the main character's name was or where the story was set by the time she finally jammed her phone back into her jacket pocket. Then she went over to the nearby coffee cart and bought a coffee, before sitting down again and waiting some more.

It was after one when the bus eventually rolled up outside, and even more after one by the time it disgorged its load of weary passengers from the capital, they picked up their luggage and departed, and Brienne and the other people waiting at the bus station were finally ushered on board.

She took a seat by a window about halfway down the bus, and stared out at the rain.

~*~

The bus ride from Harrenhal was not as terrifying as the flight from Tarth had been, but it seemed just as endless. That feeling wasn't helped by the delays that beset them almost as soon as the ancient castle and its surrounding town were out of sight.

First, there was the four car pile-up that closed the Kingsroad heading towards King's Landing. They'd waited well over half an hour before one lane was, mercifully, cleared, and then they crept along behind a snaking line of other vehicles for what must have been miles. Even once the traffic sped up and spread out, the bus didn't seem to be moving anything like as fast as it could have. Apparently they had a cautious driver wary of the slippery conditions. Any other time, Brienne would have more than approved of that sort of attitude, but today…

Of course, once the bus broke down, it became clear that their relatively slow speed probably hadn't been the result of an abundance of caution on the part of the driver. They waited there in the unmoving bus by the side of the Kingsroad for _another_ half hour or more before the replacement bus arrived. Brienne walked through the rain to the other bus, boots getting caked with mud, as the two drivers transferred the luggage from one bus to the other. By the time they set off again, the bus was already due to have arrived in King's Landing.

Brienne was going to be impossibly late, but it wasn't as if she had any choice but to keep going.

The bus arrived in King's Landing at five minutes before four. Brienne waited impatiently for her bag, wishing that she'd been allowed to put it on the empty seat beside her instead of having to stow it in the luggage compartment. It was only as everyone else collected their luggage and moved off that she realised that her bag wasn't there.

"No, it was definitely on the first bus," she told the driver when he asked if she'd seen it loaded on board before they left Harrenhal. "It must have been overlooked when everybody's luggage was transferred to this bus."

"All right, miss. I'll look into it. You'll need to fill out a lost property form."

And that, it turned out, was what it took for Brienne to reach snapping point. "I don't have time to fill out a bloody form!" she said through clenched teeth. "I'll be in touch. Later." She turned and stalked off without another word.

She'd probably just destroyed any chance of seeing her bag and its contents ever again, but right now she simply didn't care. They were just things, after all.

People were much more important.

She stepped out of the bus station and onto the street. A local bus with 'Route 300—Red Keep' on the front was just pulling up at the stop out the front. Brienne dug into her pocket for her KL transport pass and waved it at the electronic reader as she scrambled on board.

It was the first bit of good luck she'd had since Endrew appeared on her doorstep this morning. Maybe it would hold at least until she made it to the Red Keep.

Maybe.

~*~

The bus took a meandering route up the hill to the Red Keep. It was all Brienne could do not to simply get out and walk—or run. It took every shred of good sense she possessed to convince herself that she could still get there quicker if she just stayed on the bus.

She alighted from the bus outside the Red Keep just after half past four in the afternoon, well past lunchtime by anybody's reckoning.

Would he still be there? Had he been there today at all?

Brienne was about to find out the answer. She felt sick to the stomach again, and even sicker when she looked up at the imposing edifice of the massive castle. She felt uncharacteristically small, and insignificant and out of place. Why had she agreed to meet him here, of all places? She should have suggested somewhere cosier and more relaxed than a fancy restaurant at a famous historic site.

At least it wasn't hard to find it. Everyone had heard of the award-winning White Sword restaurant, even Brienne. The signposts pointed her to its location in the actual White Sword Tower without any confusion, and she arrived at the entrance minutes later.

She felt even more out of place here, windblown and damp-haired and travel weary and… _herself_. She wanted to turn and flee. She wanted to look at every table in the restaurant at once, and maybe, hope against foolish hope, see a tall man with golden hair sitting there, waiting for her.

Hope won out. She looked. And looked. And looked some more.

There were no golden-haired men in the restaurant. Not even one. There was hardly anyone here at all, in fact, which really wasn't so surprising at this hour.

Brienne's hands clenched into fists, and her lower lip trembled for a second before she got ahold of herself, forcing calm.

He wasn't here. He hadn't come. It had all been for nothing.

Brienne turned to go back the way she'd come. She was a fool. A foolish, sad, lonel-

"Ms Tarth?"

She stopped, turned, looked back in surprise. A middle-aged man she didn't know stood there, a waiter by the look of him, tall and dignified and with a rather snooty expression.

"Yes?" she said, uncertain of how he knew her, or what he could want with her.

"Ah." The man bestowed a cool, professional smile on her. "I was told that you might favour us with your presence today," he said, with a completely straight face. Of course they trained them well here. "Mr Lannister asked me to give you this, if you should happen to arrive." He handed her a slip of heavy cream paper, folded in half once and then again.

Brienne took it. This time it was her hand that trembled. "Thank you," she said, the words almost inaudible. She cleared her throat and tried again: "Thanks." She sounded more like herself this time, even if she didn't feel like herself at all.

She felt as if she'd fallen into a dream, and didn't yet know if it would still turn out to be a nightmare.

"A pleasure to be of service, Ms Tarth," the man said with a small bow. "Would you care to take a table?"

"Yes. No. I don't…" Brienne unfolded the note, scanned the contents, and let out a shaky breath. "No," she said, more firmly. "I don't need a table, thank you." She looked up from the note. "Thank you for your assistance."

"A pleasure, Ms Tarth," the man assured her, smiling briefly again before hurrying off.

Brienne stood there, reading the note again, and then again, reading it through a fourth time just to be really sure that it did indeed say what she thought it said. She kept standing there, after, staring down at the signature. 'Tyrion Lannister', it said in flowing script. _Tyrion_. Jaime's brother. The one Jaime had listed as his next of kin when he'd signed on as a patient at the Winterfell Clinic.

The note was brief and to the point:

_He waited for you for three hours before I finally persuaded him to leave. In the remote possibility that you didn't stand him up—foolish thought, I know, since your absence spoke louder than any words, but some would call me a foolish man—and are actually reading this because you did finally turn up—Well, you'll find him at home tonight. I'll make sure of that._

She almost dropped the note from suddenly nerveless fingers as the truth of its contents finally started to sink in.

He came. He kept the appointment. He waited.

For her.

And now… He'd be at home, later. Waiting again, even though he didn't know it yet.

For her.

This was a dream. It had to be. Just not X-rated for once.

Brienne pinched herself. She actually pinched herself. Hard.

She didn't wake up. This was real. Against all the odds, this was real.

She let out a bark of harsh laughter and had to clap her hand over her mouth.

This was _real_.

She should text Jaime. She should call. She really should. What must he have thought when she didn't show up? How must he be feeling right now?

Brienne pulled out her phone, found Jaime in her contacts, and, mouth suddenly dry, pressed 'call'.

The call went straight through to voicemail. He'd turned his phone off. _Of course_ he'd turned his phone off. Again. Brienne felt like banging her head against the very handy ancient brick wall.

She would go to his apartment. It was probably much better to start this conversation in person, anyway. But the note had said that his brother would make sure that Jaime was home _tonight_. It had said nothing about this afternoon. Brienne really didn't fancy hanging about at the entrance to Jaime's building, possibly for hours, as she waited and wondered what they would say to each other. She'd drive herself half crazy, apart from being out in the weather for who knew how long, and… well, everything else.

She needed something to occupy her for the next little while, and it didn't take her longer than a few seconds to decide what that something should be. She had a standing invitation to pop in to the Winterfell Clinic and say hello to Catelyn and all of her other old workmates whenever she was in King's Landing.

Brienne would… well, not _pop_ , but she would visit and catch up with everyone, and by the time she'd done all that it would be close enough to evening that she could get yet another bus across town and chance buzzing Jaime's intercom, just as she'd done that very first day—and been growled at through the static for her trouble.

She was smiling, a bit tremulously, but definitely smiling, as she got on the bus that would take her back down the hill.

~*~

Everyone at the clinic was delighted to see Brienne again. They'd nearly all finished for the day, apart from Theon, who was in with one last patient. All the others crowded around her, clapping her on the shoulder and reaching up to kiss her cheek: Roslin and Robb, Jeyne and Luwin—even Sansa was there. And, of course, Catelyn herself. She smiled on Brienne, motherly and warm, and Brienne realised how much she'd missed her—but she also realised how right she'd been to leave her employment at the clinic. She needed to stand on her own two feet without any sort of maternal presence approving—or worse, disapproving—in the background. She didn't have to wonder what Catelyn would think, if she'd ever found out precisely why Jaime had dispensed with Brienne's professional services after only four days.

Still, Brienne smiled at Catelyn and it was a real smile, full of warmth and genuine affection. She was still smiling when the door to Theon's treatment room opened and Theon emerged.

"Theon I—” she began, taking a step toward him and then stopping dead as Theon's patient followed him out of the room.

Jaime. It was Jaime, standing right there in front of her, more beautiful than any dream or memory, let alone a fuzzy snippet of news footage that Brienne had watched way too many times.

He looked… He looked… He looked as shocked as Brienne felt. More shocked, probably, since he had every reason to think that he'd never see her again.

She found her voice first. "Jaime," she said. "I didn't expect to see you here."

She knew the moment that he pulled himself together, saw the way the shock and hurt disappeared from his eyes, replaced by something cold and hard and brittle. "Obviously, Ms Tarth. I didn't expect to see you, either. Now, if you'll excuse me?" He made to push past her, but was halted by Theon, of all people.

"I think we should make that three weeks, Jaime. How does 4.00pm on the 24th suit you?"

"That's fine," Jaime said tersely, taking another step towards the door.

"Okay, then. Jeyne, could you put that in the calendar?" Theon said, even as Brienne said, too loudly: " _Brienne_. Jaime, my name is Brienne."

Jaime turned back, and if anything his gaze had grown even colder. "I prefer a certain formality."

Brienne shook her head. "No, you don't." She moved closer until she was standing right beside him, close enough to touch. Close enough to kiss, almost. She didn't do either of those things, conscious of the many curious pairs of eyes watching her. Watching _them_. She took a deep breath. "Could I have a word with you outside? Please? There's something I need to tell you."

He was silent for a moment. She waited, tense, as he drew in a breath and prepared to speak. She was sure he was going to say no, was going to turn her down and simply walk out of here. Then she'd have to follow him, and keep going after him until he let her explain.

But: "All right," Jaime said. " _A_ word." The cynical smile that followed his answer made it very clear that he was doing this under sufferance.

Brienne was going to have to make that one word count.

~*~

Jaime hadn't had a physiotherapy appointment scheduled today. He'd expected— _hoped_ —to be far more pleasurably occupied this afternoon, and hadn't been pleased when his brother had insisted on tagging along to the restaurant, curious to see 'the wondrous Brienne', who apparently Jaime had talked about often enough that Tyrion had taken note. He had only allowed Tyrion to accompany him after Tyrion had promised, _faithfully_ , that he would make himself scarce as soon as Brienne appeared.

They'd arrived at the restaurant on the dot of twelve—Jaime didn't want to appear _too_ eager by getting there early—and at first, when there was no sign of Brienne, Jaime hadn't worried too much. She was a busy professional, so she'd probably simply been held up with a patient. Jaime knew that she was no longer working at the Winterfell Clinic—he'd made that small, disappointing discovery two months after they'd parted, when he'd decided to change from home visits to appointments at the clinic itself—but obviously she must be working somewhere. Bronn could have found out exactly where, of course, but Jaime had resisted asking him. Brienne had specified no contact for six months, and it didn't seem honourable to spy on her, however indirectly.

He and Tyrion had ordered a bottle of Arbour Red and made their way through it together, Jaime's eyes straying to the entrance more and more often. By the time Tyrion poured the dregs into his goblet, Brienne was clearly late. Jaime didn't protest when Tyrion ordered another bottle.

Jaime couldn't quite believe it when they got to the end of the second bottle and Brienne still hadn't shown. She'd _promised_. Well, she hadn't actually sworn that she'd be here, but when Jaime had pressed her she'd said "all right". She'd said that she would meet him, here, today. Jaime had thought Brienne was a woman of her word. He'd been sure that she would come. So _very_ sure.

This time, Jaime was the one who poured out what wine remained in the bottle, and called for more.

Tyrion had eyed him pityingly as the castle's bells struck three. "She's not coming," he told Jaime bluntly.

"She still might," Jaime said, and drained his goblet. "She promised she'd meet me here for lunch."

"Lunch is over," Tyrion said, and signalled for the bill. "It's _over_ , Jaime. Or are you going to sit here until you're falling down drunk?"

"What if I did?" Jaime asked, more belligerently than Tyrion really deserved—but Jaime wasn't feeling fair right now. The world was not fair. It wasn't fair at all.

He'd really thought that Brienne was fair, but she was just like all the rest.

"Then some pap would take a snap of you at the worst possible moment, and you'd be splashed all over the tabloid news sites before sunset." He sighed. "You really can't stay here, Jaime. Let me get Bronn to drive you home."

At that opportune moment, the receptionist from the Winterfell Clinic had called to tell Jaime that Theon had a cancellation late this afternoon and the appointment was Jaime's if he wanted it.

It had suddenly seemed like the perfect afternoon for a spot of physical torture at the hands of someone who wasn't Brienne, so Jaime had said goodbye to Tyrion at the restaurant and allowed himself to be driven home by Bronn, to have coffee poured into him once he got there, and, when the time came, for Bronn to drive him down to the clinic.

If asked, Jaime could have said that yes, technically it was possible that he might see Brienne again, in passing, one day, but he really didn't expect to see her any time soon. And he particularly didn't expect to speak to her ever again.

And then he came out of the treatment room, fingers in screaming agony, and there she was. Right there, in front of him. Brienne. No, not _Brienne_. Not the woman who'd granted him one long, heated night in her bed like none he'd ever had. Not the woman he'd spent the past six months patiently reconstructing his life for. That woman no longer existed. Maybe she never really had. This was Ms Tarth, the physiotherapist.

She appeared surprised to see him—as well she might be—so much so that the colour drained right out of her face, her freckles standing out in stark contrast against her pale skin. The memory of trailing kisses across those freckles, of threatening to kiss them one by one, no matter how long it would take, came back to him before he could stop it.

But no, that had been Brienne, not Ms Tarth. He hardened his heart, made himself go away inside, and made it clear to Ms Tarth precisely what he thought of her—which was nothing. Nothing at all.

"Could I have a word with you outside? Please? There's something I need to tell you," she said—asked—as she came over to stand beside him, so close he could have sworn he could feel her warm breath against his cheek. Her deep blue eyes were fixed on his, as if they were the only two people in the room.

He intended to refuse her. He opened his mouth to say 'no'.

"All right," he found himself saying instead. " _A_ word." Not that that would do her, or him, much good. There was nothing left to be said. She'd already made that more than clear by her silence. Her absence. Her…

Oh, gods, she was _here_.

He walked out the door, not waiting to see if B—if _she_ followed.

She did follow. A blast of wintry air hit them as they stepped out onto the street, followed by a small shower of half-frozen rain droplets from some nearby rooftop.

"Over here," she said, pointing under the awning of the coffee shop next door. It was closed for the day, so they sheltered in the doorway.

Jaime turned to her expectantly, trying for a look of cool hauteur. It felt as if he must have missed it by a mile, but he still said, as coolly as he could, "So, what's that word you wanted to say?"

"I came," she said.

Jaime wished he could see her face properly, but dusk was already closing in, and her expression was lost in the gloom. "That's two words," he told her.

"Jaime, I came to the Red Keep today."

Well, that was a bare-faced lie. "Did you?" he asked, even more coolly. "I didn't bother turning up. It was just as well we chose to give each other some space after that… incident back in the summer. I don't know what I was thinking then."

"You liar!" Brienne gasped. "Jaime, I _know_ you waited there for hours. Your brother left me a note telling me so. I was late, horribly, horribly late. I'm so sorry. I've been travelling all day and absolutely everything went wrong. I-"

"What? Where in the gods' names have you been travelling from?" He'd started planning a fitting vengeance on his brother, but it was only when Brienne mentioned travelling that the actual meaning of her words properly sank in.

She'd come after all. She'd been late, but she'd tried to keep their appointment. Just like he had.

She hadn't stood him up at all.

"Tarth," she said with a breathy little laugh that Jaime decided he could easily grow very fond of. "I live there now. The bad weather shut down the ferry service, and if it wasn't for my absolutely _insane_ cousin and his seaplane I never would have-"

He kissed her, because he'd only promised to let her have a single word, and there'd already been far many more than that between them. Too many. His mouth was hard against hers, softening as she started murmuring against his lips. He kissed the corner of her mouth, her chin, below her ear and along her jaw, as she explained just how badly her day had gone. Oh gods, he'd missed this, missed _her_ , so very, very much.

"Poor Brienne," he said at last, pressing a kiss against her temple. "We'll replace your luggage and everything in it. New clothes. Everything and anything you want. Not that I expect you'll be needing many clothes in the immediate future." He smiled against her skin.

"I'll buy myself some clothes tomorrow if I don't get my luggage back," Brienne said firmly, and there was an echo of the stern physiotherapist he'd first met all those months ago in her voice. "It's just a shame about my boots."

"Your boots?" He drew back a little, trying to look her in the eye in the near darkness.

"My knee-high boots. You asked and… well. I brought them."

Jaime grinned, imagining her blush. "We'll get you a new pair of those, too. Even taller than the old ones. Tell me: do you have any strong opinions on studs?"

"Jaime!" Her face was probably red enough by now to light up a room.

Jaime laughed, happy and carefree.

This time, it was Brienne who stopped his mouth with a kiss.

They were interrupted a while later by the sound of someone slow-clapping nearby. They sprang apart, though it was already way too late to pretend that they were simply discussing something, hands all over each other here in the dark.

"Well, that explains a whole lot of things," Theon said. Jaime could see him grinning in the light from the street lamp above as he approached them. "I'll tell Cat that you had to leave. It'd probably be best if she didn't know about this, at least for the time being."

"Tell her I'll be in touch. I'd like to catch up with her properly while I'm in King's Landing," Brienne said. She did not, Jaime noted, say 'before I go home to Tarth'.

That was another thing they were going to have to discuss. But there would be time for that now. There would be time for everything, now that she was here. With him.

Theon nodded. "Will do." He shook his head at them, still grinning, before he went back inside.

As soon as the clinic door closed again, Jaime took Brienne's hand in his. It was the first time he'd ever done that in public. But he could do that now and no one could stop him. No one except Brienne, anyway.

She clutched his hand tightly. "What do you want to do tonight? No, don't answer that," she added quickly, before he could say anything.

He grinned into the darkness. It seemed that Brienne already knew him quite well. But of course she did, just like Jaime knew her. That's why he'd been so sure that she would keep their appointment today, and why he'd found it so incredibly difficult to accept when it had looked as if she hadn't. Yes, they'd technically known each other for just four days, or maybe only a single night—but they'd also known each other for six months, or maybe a thousand lifetimes, depending on which way you chose to look at it.

It was enough to be sure of. At least, Jaime thought it was.

"You didn't ask whether I still needed you or not," he said, before he could think better of it.

"I don't need to ask. It's obvious. You look…" She paused. "Well, you look a lot healthier than you did six months ago. And the fact that you were at the clinic today and not expecting a home visit tells me a whole lot. Plus, I've seen the occasional news report about you, too." She went silent. Jaime heard her sigh, felt the soft gust of her breath against his cheek, for real this time. "Jaime, who was that with you at that fundraising ball?"

He blinked. "What are you talk—Oh, you mean the roses and thorns ball, back in the autumn?" But of course she did. It was the only ball Jaime had attended in the past six months. No one turned down the venerable leader of King's Landing society when she issued an 'invitation' to her annual ball. Not even a Lannister.

"I saw you on the news. You looked… You were laughing with someone."

"Was I?" He didn't remember much about that night, apart from his 'date'.

"Yes, you were," Brienne said, in an extremely neutral voice. "Who did you take with you?"

"I don't really remember much about that night," Jaime admitted. "I wasn't… as well as I am now."

Brienne said nothing. It was clear she was waiting for his answer.

"I took Bronn," Jaime said, grimacing at the memory. "And no, I'm not going to tell you why except that I owed him something, and that was his price. He was a terrible date, if you really want to know. He ditched me as soon as dinner was over, and I didn't see him again for the rest of the evening."

That startled a laugh out of Brienne. She dropped a brief kiss on his lips, and Jaime knew that whatever had been bugging her was no longer going to be a potential problem.

"We should go before the others come out and find us here," she said.

Jaime had no argument with that. "So what do _you_ want to do tonight?" he asked.

She didn't answer immediately. Her thumb moved slowly against the underside of his wrist, finding the pulse point, stroking back and forth in a steady rhythm until Jaime's heartbeat was thundering in his ears.

"Can we get dinner?" she asked in a rush. "I haven't eaten all day and I'm starving."

And oh yes, Jaime could understand that. He was _starving_ too. But she needed food before anything else, and he hadn't had anything for lunch apart from red wine. And besides: "We've never been on a date," he pointed out.

"No," Brienne said, and Jaime could almost hear her thinking about everything they _had_ done. They'd got this relationship—because that's what it was, wasn't it? A relationship? They'd got this relationship backwards from the start. It was about time they tried going forwards.

"So let me take you to dinner," he said. "I know a place down in Flea Bottom. I hear it's good. They serve every cuisine from the Free Cities, plus they offer home delivery—including other items, not just food."

"Jaime."

He leaned in, and whispered against her ear: "I've still got those glow in the dark condoms."

He felt the laugh welling up deep inside her before it burst out of Brienne in an unstoppable, joyous peal. He'd never heard her laugh like that. It was the best sound in the world.

He waited until her laughter ended and kissed her again, slow and thorough. "Let me take you to dinner," he said again, against her lips this time.

"Okay, take me to dinner," she said, and pulled him close against her side.

They stepped out into the rain, arm in arm and hand in hand, and walked off into the night. Two equals together for real. At last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back in January, I did a ficlet prompt ask on tumblr as what was supposed to be a short break between chapters of my WIP. Intoni gave me the prompt "a massage", and I started on this story. It quickly became obvious that my problem with word count estimates was going to be even worse than usual with this one, but I kept going with it... 
> 
> And then 2020 happened. I wasn't able to write at all for more than two months, but I still REALLY wanted to finish this story, so I heaved a huge sigh of relief when my life started getting back on track and last week I finally started writing again.
> 
> Almost eight months since I started it, it's finally done! It's the longest ficlet I - or possibly anyone else - has ever written, and I sincerely hope that I never break that record with another ficlet.
> 
> I would not have made it to the end without the help and encouragement of Samirant, Firesign, Nire and Slipsthrufingers. Thanks so much, guys! ❤️


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